


The Girl with the Bread

by Lazuli5



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-14
Updated: 2021-02-06
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:14:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 43,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27566578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lazuli5/pseuds/Lazuli5
Summary: An ATLA take on a Hunger Games setting. When Katara is reaped at the age of twelve, her brother Sokka is horrified. He can't volunteer for her, but it turns out he doesn't have to - Toph Beifong does instead, the girl who's been slipping him bread for the last five years.
Relationships: Toph Beifong/Sokka
Comments: 33
Kudos: 70





	1. The Reaping

Sokka reaches out, his fingers curling into thin air. He opens his eyes, but the covers on his bed have been thrown off on one side, a Katara-sized hole in the sheets and blankets. He sighs. She's gone to sleep with their father again, most likely because her dreams had been plagued by nightmares. Who can blame her? Today is reaping day.

He props himself up on his elbow, narrowing his eyes to see in the darkened room. There. In another corner of the bedroom of their tiny hut is another cot, occupied by a large lump and a medium one. His father and his sister.

In the dark his father looks younger, less worn and beaten down. He had been very handsome once. Or so he's been told. Katara's sleeping face is like that of the waters she loved so much - peaceful and calm. But he knows better. Once the sun rises the water will be splashed and her face will twist into worry, anger and confusion. He knows that face well. He sees it every time he looks in a mirror.

Deciding he can no longer delay the inevitable, he swings his feet down onto the bare floor, ignoring the chills that creep up his spine. He's used to them by now - no matter how hot the day grows, the morning will always be frosted over. That's how it is in District 12, or at least in the Seam. But once he gets dressed he will be free of the cold.

His hunting boots have molded to fit his feet over the years, so he needs only to slip them into the supple leather for them to adjust. He grabs a shirt, trousers, and his foraging bag before leaving the room, pausing only to give his sister a feather-light kiss on the forehead. 

Once he leaves, taking care to shut the door behind him, he quickens his pace. Time is a tool, and although it can be helpful sometimes, it's not his friend today. In fact, it hardly ever is. The reaping is at two o'clock, so he only has a few precious hours to spare. No, not to spare. To live.

Most of the people who live in the Seam are still asleep, their coal-encrusted shutters drawn tight and their blackened front steps empty. Usually the coal miners would be crawling at this hour, but today is reaping day. Might as well sleep in. If you can.

Quickly Sokka makes the familiar trek to the fence enclosing District 12 from the woods. The woods. He closes his eyes, allowing himself a small moment to anticipate the sweet smelling grass and the sound of creatures actually living, not just surviving. Goodness knew he's learned there is a difference.

He opens his eyes. No more dawdling, though he usually pauses here for a second each day, just to appreciate what he's doing. Something his mother taught him to do, before she was blown to bits in a mine explosion. There was nothing to even bury. Five years later, Katara still wakes up screaming for her to run and it's up to him to calm her down.

After crawling under a hole in the fence, which is supposed to be charged with electricity but hardly ever is, he retrieves his bow and arrows from a hollow in an old log. Another gift from his mother, and a useful one at that. There are plenty of dangerous things in the woods, venemous snakes and poisonous mushrooms and rabid animals, but there is also food if you know how to find it. His mother had known. 

His bow is a rarity, crafted by his father before he'd turned in on himself and used by his mother before she'd died. It's something of a miracle that he's learned to use it so effectively, because his family would be dead if he hadn't. 

"District Twelve. Where you can starve to death in safety," he mutters, but hushed in tone and he risks a glance over his shoulder. You have to be careful what you say, even hidden away in the woods, even at home, where he could speak freely, though he chose his words carefully around his sister. She might start to repeat his words and then where will they be? Sent into the mines years early to be blown to bits like their mother? He can't allow that, so he only risks a sentence here in his seclusion.

He settles on a rock by the lake with a fishing rod. It's not a very effective strategy, but he doesn't feel up to doing much else. If today were a normal day he would roam around, stalking his prey, but today is reaping day. He hasn't the energy to do anything but wait for the prey to come to him. Besides, he has a small squirrel pelt to clean before he can take it to the Hob, the resident black market in town where he makes most of his trades. The baker will pay for a squirrel in bread, and he wants to surprise Katara with her favorite. Sort of a treat, as if that could make up for the horrors she is to witness in three hours. But hopefully he won't have to get it from the baker.

His voice takes on the Capitol accent of Ty Lee, the maniacally upbeat woman who arrives once a year to read out the names at the reaping. "Happy Hunger Games! And may the odds be ever in your favor!"

He shakes his head. That silly accent can make anything sound amusing, and the alternative is to be scared out of his wits, and that's not an option. He has to hold it together for Katara's sake, because he knows his father certainly won't. All he sees when he looks at him is the man who sat by, blank and unreachable, as his children turned to skin and bone. He tries to forgive him for his mother's sake, since he had given up his life in the nicer part of Distrit 12, where he was an apothecary, to marry her. But sometimes it's hard to remember. 

He stretches out as much as he can, trying to get comfortable with his rof and his squirrel on his lap. He pops a few berries in his mouth, and they burst with flavor. From this place he is invisible, with a clear view of the valley; it's teeming with summer life, greens to gather, roots to dig, fish iridescent in the sunlight. The day is glorious, with a blue sky and a soft breeze. Everything would be perfect if this really was a holiday, if all the day off meant was roaming in the mountains, hunting for tonight's supper. But tonight he has to be standing in the square with the other sixteen-year-olds, waiting for the names to be called out.

Sometimes he wishes he could just run off, live in the woods alone. He could make it. He knows he could. But he can't leave Katara, the only person in the world he's certain he loves. And he might as well throw his father in there, how would he survive without him? It's just wishful thinking. He knows that, and yet he thinks it anyway. He sighs.

By late morning he has a dozen fish, a bag of greens, and a picked-clean squirrel. It will make a decent meal on its own, but he snags a few strawberries from a patch he'd found years ago. After the reaping, everyone is supposed to celebrate, and a lot of people fo out of the relief that their children have been spared for another year. But at least two families with pull their shutters, lock their doors, and try to figure out how to survive the painful weeks to come. Sokka had never been a part of one of those families, and he hopes that he never will be.

On the way home he swings by the Hob, the black market in an abandoned warehouse that once held coal. He sells six of the fish in exchange for bread, and another two for salt. When he finishes his business at the market, he heads to the back door of the mayor's house to sell some of the strawberries. His wife has a particular fondness for them and will buy for a reasonable price. Her daughter always answers the door, however, for fear that her father will discover that she is meddling with peasants. 

Today is no different. When he knocks, Toph comes to the door. She's a year younger than him, and blind. You'd expect her to be a snob, but she's all right. She just keeps to herself, though she can be snappy when she wants to be. That's something he admires about her. 

Her drab school outfit has been replaced by an expensive green dress, and her black hair is done up with pins. Reaping clothes.

"Nice dress," he comments as he hands her the strawberries. She glares at him, cutting a surprisingly scary figure for a blind girl.

"Thanks," she says stiffly. "I wouldn't know, but my mother tells me it is."

He laughs, then stops short. "Sorry, I didn't mean -"

"Don't be," she says, her face softening into a smirk. "I would've laughed too."

He nods, unsure what to say next. "Enjoy the strawberries."

She doesn't respond, merely spills coins into his hands and hands him his bread before slamming the door.

He examines the bread. Chunky, the good kind filled with raisins and nuts. It smells like he would imagine being rich is like: warm and cozy, full of memories. 

This is Toph's exchange for his company, even if it is only for a few seconds. Every time he brings her strawberries, they have a rushed and awkward conversion, as neither of them really have any friends and therefore don't know how to small talk. But it means something to him, and it must mean something to her too, for every time he leaves he is accompanied by one of these loaves.

He doesn't know where she gets them, but he isn't complaining. As long as it feeds his sister, he's grateful.

At home, he finds his father and sister are ready to go. His father wears a fine suit from his apothecary days. Katara is dressed in their mother's old reaping day clothes, and they're a bit big. She's having trouble keeping the blouse tucked in at the back. He gives her a piece of the bread early, and her eyes shine.

He is surprised to find when he comes back from his bath that his father has laid out one of his own suits for him to wear.

"Are you sure?" He asks. He's trying to get past his feelings of resentment, and this is something special. The things from his past are very precious to him.

"Of course," he says in his gruff voice. For a long time it had been hoarse and shaky, if he spoke at all. But it's slowly returning to its normal tone. Like it had been before his mother died. 

"You look handsome," Katara says after he has pulled on the suit and straightened his hair into its signature ponytail. He touches his freshly shaved sides.

"Tuck in your tail, turtleduck," he responds. He hugs her tightly, because he knows these next few hours will be awful for her. Her first reaping. She's about as safe as she can be, though. He wouldn't allow her to take out any tesserae, which was a years supply of grain and oil in return for more slips of your name in the pot. But she's worried about him. That the unthinkable might happen. 

He protects Katara in every way he can, but he is powerless against the reaping. The thought of her in pain caused anger to bubble up inside of him and he fears in registers on his face. He swallows.

"Tuck in your tail, turtleduck," he repeats, and she giggles.

"Quack."

"Quack," he agrees, standing up and smoothing her hair. "Come on, let's eat."

The fish and greens are simmering on a stew, but that will be for supper, as will the remaining strawberries and Toph's bread. For now they choke down starchy rolls made from the tesserae grain, but no one has much of an appetite anyway.

At one o'clock they head for the square, one of the nicer parts of District 12 when it isn't reaping day. In fact when it's sunny and the weather is good it has almost a holiday feel to it. But today the silence is deafening, the sound of eight thousand shuffling pairs of feet slowly making their way to the center. Sokka says goodbye to his sister and goes over to the section roped off for sixteen-year-olds. He sees his father waiting with the rest of the parents in the back. They lock eyes for a moment, but he looks away. Instead he focuses on the stage set up in front of the Justice Building.

On it are three chairs, a podium, and two giant glass balls filled with slips of paper. He tries to ignore the fact that twenty of them have Sokka Everdeen written on them in careful handwriting. Two of the three chairs are filled by Toph's father, Mayor Beifong, and Ty Lee, District 12's escort, fresh from the Capitol with her scary grin, excessive white and red makeup, and long bouncy braid. They whisper together and shoot looks at the empty chair.

When the clock strikes two, Mayor Beifong steps up to the podium and tells the history of Avatar, the country that rose up out of the ashes of a place that was once called North America, a shining Capitol outlined by thirteen districts. Then came the Dark Days, after which twelve districts were defeated. The thirteenth was obliterated, and to punish our uprising, the Hunger Games were born. The rules are simple. Twenty four kids, two from each district, aged twelve to eighteen, were sent to an arena to fight to the death. The last tribute standing wins.

"It is both a time for repentance and a time for thanks," finishes the mayor. He then reads out a list of the past District 12 victors. In the past seventy four years, they've had exactly two. Only one is still alive, and at that moment Iroh Abernathy comes onto the stage and falls into the third chair, holding a cup of tea and smiling as if everyone else is early instead of him being late. 

"Hello," he says dreamily, and the crowd titters.

The mayor looks distressed. He knows just as Sokka does that this is all being televised live to the Capitol, and right now they are the laughingstock of Avatar. He tries to pull the crowd back by introducing Ty Lee.

Bright and bubbly as ever, she comes over, her braid bouncing along. She gives her signature "Happy Hunger Games! And may the odds be ever in your favor!" She goes on about what an honor it is to be even though everyone knows she is aching to be bumped up to a better district. Then it's time for the drawing.

"Ladies first!" She chirps, and reaches her finger into the glass bowl, clawing her way around hundreds of thousands of slips. The crowd draws in a collective breath as she pulls one out, smoothes it down, and reads the name in a clear voice. 

"Katara Everdeen!"


	2. The Volunteers

Once, when Sokka was younger, he had been out in the woods with his mother. She had been showing him how to climb a tree, but he had fallen out. He'd laid on his back, gasping for air like a fish out of water, struggling to inhale, exhale, to do anything.

That's how he feels now. Trying to remember how to breathe, unable to speak, totally stunned as the name bounces around in his skull. 

There must be some mistake. This can't be happening. Katara was one slip of paper in thousands! Her chances of being chosen were so slim he hadn't even bothered worrying about her. One slip. One slip in thousands. The odds had been entirely in her favor, but it hadn't mattered.

Somewhere far away, he can hear the crowd murmuring unhappily ad they always do when a twelve-year-old is chosen. And then he sees her, the blood drained from her tanned face, hands clenched at her sides, walking stiffly past him, and he sees her blouse untucked at the back, and he loses it.

"Katara!" The strangled cry isn't him, yet it has erupted from his mouth. "Katara!"

She turns, and her cheeks are tense with the effort of not crying. Her eyes warn him not to start, or she will overflow. He doesn't listen. 

"I volunteer!" He gasps. "I volunteer as tribute!"

There's some confusion on the stage, as it's been so long since District 12 has had a volunteer, but Ty Lee clucks unhappily.

"Sorry, dear!" She says, gazing down at him, his arm outstretched in front of his sister like he can protect her from these horrors. "Only an eligible girl can volunteer for this young lady, and you, unfortunately, are not."

Her words register in his brain, but it refuses to comprehend them. "No," he croaks. "Please... there has to be a way..."

"Would anyone like to volunteer for this girl?" She calls out to the crowd as if he hasn't spoken. She is greeted with silence.

"Well, then," she says, turning back to the siblings. Sokka gathers Katara in his arms and she clings to him, slow tears falling down her face. "If that's all there is then I'm afraid -"

"I volunteer as tribute!"

The crowd mutters amongst itself, turning to find the source of the high voice that's uttered those words. Sokka finds it before they do, because her pale, sightless eyes are somehow locked onto his.

"I volunteer," Toph Beifong repeats sullenly. 

Her father regards her sharply. "Toph, what are you -"

"I volunteer," she counters, a bit louder this time. She begins walking towards the stage, and for the first time Sokka realizes that she carried an engraved stick that she thrusts in front of her. Of course. She's blind. It occurs to him that he's never seen her walk before. She reaches the stage and is pulled up by Ty Lee.

"Lovely!" She says, clapping her hands together. "What's your name, dear?"

"Toph Beifong."

"Beifong?" She glances at the mayor, who swallows but keeps his gaze directed forward, much like his daughter. 

"Well, then," she continues hastily, putting her hand on the girl's shoulder. "Come on everybody! Let's give a big round of applause to our newest tribute!"

Sokka is too stunned to do anything. He's vaguely aware that no one is clapping, and some part of him swells with respect, but he's too busy staring at the petite girl in front of him, her face masked with calm, the very picture of what a tribute from District 12 shouldn't be.

Too late he realizes that everyone in the crowd has touched their fingers to their lips, the three first ones. It's a sign of thanks, farewell. It's goodbye to someone you love. Even little Katara at his side is doing it, her gaze fixed on her savior. But Sokka cannot. He's in shock. 

"What an exciting day!" Ty Lee concludes to cover the silence. Surely everyone watching must be wondering what the heck is going on. "But there's more excitement to come! It's time to choose our boy tribute!"

She marches over to the ball contained the boy's names and grabs the first slip she encounters, and suddenly she's reading the name, and to her credit, there is something close to sympathy in her voice.

"Sokka Everdeen!"

The crowd can't hold in their gasps this time, and who can blame them? Two siblings called in the same year? It's unheard of. And yet everyone just heard it.

He hears her call his name, but much like Ty Lee's words before, they do not compute. He blinks, then blinks again. 

"No!" Katara wails. "No, no, NO!" She begins clinging and clutching at his arms, refusing to let go. "Sokka! You can't go! You can't!"

"Katara, let go," he says, stumbling backwards unintentionally. Her words have comprehended. A tribute. He is a tribute. The male tribute from District 12. He is alone. He wills himself not to cry, because when they televise the replay of the reapings everyone will make note of his tears and target him a weakling. He will give no one that satisfaction. "Let go!"

He feels someone behind him pulling her from his back. He turns and sees his father has lifted Katara off the ground and into his arms, where she thrashes helplessly. He says nothing, but the look on his face suggests if he opens his mouth there will be tears. They break eye contact and he carts her off to the back. She has stopped fighting and hangs limply in his arms. The look in her eyes is haunting. 

Ty Lee asks for volunteers, but there aren't any. He assumes this, but it still hurts. It's not like there's anyone eligible he's close enough with to try, and the one person he even remotely thought might be willing has already volunteered for his sister. Not that she could've done so for him anyway.

Toph's father is now reading the long Treaty of Treason, but he isn't listening to a word. What made her do that? As far as he knew Toph had never even met Katara, but of course she's heard about her through him. And that's nothing thing - Sokka doesn't know what their official titles are, but he supposes you could call them friends. They know a fair bit about each other, and they've shared a few laughs. Then there's the bread thing. It all adds up to friendship, but that only takes you so far on reaping day. What could have occurred to her to volunteer for the girl she'd heard about in passing, possibly her only friend's little sister?

The mayor finishes up and motions him and his daughter to shake hands. Up close, Sokks can see little tears forming in his eyes. He faces Toph and finds himself lost in her misty green eyes, so useless but so enchanting, filled to the brim with mysteries. Her hand is warm, her skin pale and delicate and oozing of richness. He shakes it quickly and turns to face the crowd as the anthem of Avatar plays. 

Out of the corner of his eye he sees Toph has clasped her hands in front of her pretty dress, her face the picture of calm, but he catches it. Just for a moment. A flicker of fear ripples across her cheekbones, through her eyes, but then it's gone. The thought of having to kill this girl puts a sickening hole in his heart.

Oh, well, he thinks. There will be twenty two other tributes. Odds are someone will kill her before I have to.

Of course, the odds haven't been very dependable lately.

The moment the anthem ends, they are whisked inside the Justice Building, where they separate him from Toph and place him a the richest room he's ever been in, with thick carpets and velvet curtains and deep couches. He knows velvet because his father has a tie made out of the stuff. 

He runs his hand over the cushions, trying to calm himself down in preparation for the next hour. The time allotted for the tributes to say goodbye to their families. He cannot afford to get upset - there will be more cameras at the train station - but since he's alone, he allows himself to choke out a single sob.

First is his sister and his father. Katara doesn't hesitate to climb into his lap and wrap her arms around his neck, like she did when she was young. His father stands behind him, his arms and holds them together, and for a few minutes they are silent. Then he begins telling them what they are to do, now that he will not be there to do it for them.

Katara is not to take any tesserae. They will get by if they're cautious, on selling Katara's goat's milk and cheese and the small apothecary business his father now runs for the people in the Seam. They can gather greens in their small garden, and Katara can gather more on the border between the Seam and the woods.

When he is done with instructions on trading and staying in school, he grips his father's hand hard. "Listen to me. Are you listening?"

He nods, alarmed. He must know what's coming.

"You can't leave again," he says.

His eyes dart around. "I know. I know. I won't, I couldn't help -"

"You have to help it this time. You cannot just leave Katara on her own. I won't be around to keep my eye on you. It doesn't matter what happens. No matter what you see on that screen. You have to promise me you'll fight through!" By now he's shrieking, yelling, pounding at the walls.

He pulls away from his grasp, his eyes flashing.

"Take care of her," he says breathlessly. 

"I'll be okay, Sokka," Katara says. "But you have to be okay, too. You're fast and strong. Maybe you can win."

He can't win. Katara must know that in her heart. He has no chance. Kids from wealthier districts, where they've been training their whole lives for this opportunity. Boys three times his size, girls who know how to use every weapon. 

"Maybe," he tells her. "Then we'll be as rich as Iroh."

"I don't care if we're rich," she says. "I just want you to come home. You'll try, won't you? Won't you?"

"I will. I swear," he promises. And now, because of Katara, he'll have to.

The guard is at the door, signaling that their time is up, and all he's doing is hugging them and saying "I love you. I love you both." And they're saying it back and then the guard orders them out and the door closes and he is alone once more, left to bury his head in the cushions like he can block the whole thing out.

Someone else enters, and he looks up to see Toph's mother, the mayor's wife. Why is she here? He'll be trying to kill her daughter soon. But they do know each other a bit, since she's the one who buys his strawberries. She must have just said goodbye to Toph.

Her slender hands reach into her pocket and pull out a white box. She hands it to him, and he takes it, staring at it in wonder.

"They're strawberry tarts," she says. "I made them."

"Thank you," he says, opening the package to reveal a dozen little pastries, each with a perfect little berry in the center. "They're beautiful."

She nods, and they sit in silence for the rest of the time. The guard returns and gestures for her to leave. She rises, then turns to him once more.

"I'll keep an eye on your sister," she says, and he feels the pressure in his chest lessen slightly as she leaves. 

His last visitor is thr one he least expects. Toph.

"Are you allowed to be here?" Is his first question as she is ushered inside the room. The guard nods in answer and shuts the door, leaving them alone.

They are silent. He isn't sure why she's come in, unless it's to explain her actions today. 

"Why did you do it?"

She doesn't answer, merely sits like a petite statue. She could pass for one - she's delicate and pretty enough. He doesn't ask again, but she stirs and reaches into her pocket and pulls out something small and black, glistening like coal.

"We're allowed to wear one thing from our district in the arena. Will you wear this?" She holds out the token, and he sees that it's a bracelet made out of some strange material. Like coal, but not quite. It seems almost otherworldly. 

"Your bracelet?" He asks. Wearing something from home is the last thing on his mind.

"Here." She thrusts it into his hand, and he finds himself putting it on his wrist without even thinking about it.

"Promise you'll wear it in the arena?" She says. There is an urgency to her voice now, a plea for him to understand. "Promise?"

"Yes," he says. Tarts. A bracelet. He's getting all sorts of gifts today. Toph gives him one more - a kiss on the cheek. Then she's gone and he's left feeling more confused than ever.

He sits quietly for a few minutes. He has no other visitors, and soon the guard comes back and escorts him to the car where he will ride to the train station. He barely has time to marvel the vehicle before he's being whisked away from everything he's ever known.

It turns out he was right not to cry, for as soon as they arrive the camera flash nearly blinds him. He glances over at Toph to find that she is still stating straight ahead. Her eyes are red-rimmed from crying, something he hadn't noticed before, and interestingly enough she is not trying to cover it up. He immediately wonders if this will be her strategy during the games, to appear weak and frightened, to reassure the other tributes that she is no competition, and then come out fighting.

This worked very well for a girl, Ursa Armistice, from District 7 a few years back. She seemed like such a peacemaker, such a coward, the no one paid her much attention until there were only a few contestants left. Then she revealed that she could kill viciously. Pretty clever, but it doesn't seem the right strategy for the mayor's daughter. Then again, he knows very well that she has a rebellious streak. He toys with the bracelet on his wrist. 

They pause at the door of the train to allow the cameras to snap more photos of them, then they are ushered inside, where the train begins to move at once. The speed takes his breath away.

The train is equipped with separate chambers that each have a bedroom, closet, and private bathroom with hot running water. He doesn't have hit water at home unless Katara boils it, something she's exceptionally good at. Both he and his father always let it go too far.

The closet is filled with clothes, and Ty Lee tells him to select anything he wants, everything is at his disposal. He peels off his father's suit and takes a shower, which he's never done before. When he's done he slips on a dark blue top and black pants. At the last minute he adds Toph's bracelet on his wrist.

Ty Lee comes and tells him that supper is ready. He follows her through the narrow halls of the train and they end up in a large dining room with polished wood furniture. Toph sits at one end of the table, her hands folded in her lap.

"Where's Iroh?" Ty Lee asks.

"He said he was going to make some tea," she replies, and Ty Lee visibly relaxes. He wonders why he makes her so nervous. He never seemed particularly dangerous to him, though now he's wondering if that's a good thing. After all he'll be the key to his and Toph's survival in the coming weeks.

The dinner arrives in courses. His favorite is a simmering stew filled with prunes, but the cheese and fruit is a close second. Toph eats everything with gusto, but by the end she's looking a bit green.

They go to another room to watch the rest of the reapings across Avatar. One by one, they are displayed on the wide screen, names being called, volunteers stepping forward in some cases. A few stand out in his mind. 

A boy with a red scar from District 2. A sly-grinned girl with sleek black hair from District 5. A young girl with wild hair from District 10. And most hauntingly, a twelve-year-old boy from District 11. He has pale skin and gray eyes, but he has no hair. He reminds Sokka of Katara in size and demeanor, and its painful to think of either of them.

They move on to District 12. He sees Katara being called, himself rushing forward to volunteer. Ty Lee telling him that he cannot volunteer for his sister, and Toph's deadpanned voice ringing out across the crowd. Then him being called forward anyway. They cut to the anthem again, then the program ends.

"Well, that was lovely!" Ty Lee says as she turns off the television. Iroh enters the room, carrying a tray with four cups that each appear to be filled to the brim with tea.

"Tea, anyone?" He asks brightly, but he trips over the lavish rug and sends the steaming liquid flying all over Ty Lee. Her elaborate makeup drips, and she looks as though she's taken a dip in a brown lake. 

Sokka can't help it. He laughs, a surprisingly loud sound as the day has been filled with such silence. Toph joins him, though how she knows what's happening is beyond him. Maybe she just needs an excuse to laugh. He knows he does.

"Laugh away!" Ty Lee hisses, and she prances away on her dainty little heels, leaving behind a trail of tea droplets.


	3. The Train

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OMG I'M SO SORRY IT TOOK SO LONG but I'm planning on working on this story a lot more now! Hope you like it and let me know what you think!

For a few moments, Sokka and Toph take in the scene, still fighting to keep in their laughter. Their mentor sits contentedly on the ground, eyeing the situation around him and smiling like someone had just given him a basket of goodies. Obviously he isn't much, but he's all that they have. Sokka thinks maybe they should treat him a little better. 

"Er..." He coughs and offers his hand to Iroh, who takes it gladly and eases himself to his feet. "Um. So, ah..."

"Thank you," Iroh says, brushing himself off. "I lost my footing in a momentary sense, but I'll be all right now."

Toph snorts behind him, her arms crossed over her pretty green dress. Sokka finds himself staring at her more than is really necessary. 

"Well!" He claps his hands together, bringing Sokka back to earth. He shakes his head. Toph is a threat. She is no longer his friend. She is his death sentence. "Shall we discuss you both over a new pot of tea?"

He snaps his finger, and an Airbender comes rushing over, a steaming teapot in her hands. Iroh takes it, and Toph wrinkles her nose as she feels the girl rush past her. He can't blame her - Airbenders make him uncomfortable, and anyone from District 12 would say the same. They're so... formal. It doesn't make any sense to him.

The girl leaves, and he, Toph, and Iroh are left alone. He sits on one of the plush couches, gesturing for them to do the same. Sokka does. Toph does not.

"Ah, yes," Iroh sighs, and he knows he must have realized what a problem it would be guiding a blind tribute through the games. It's bad enough that District 12 hasn't had a victor in twenty five years, but she has absolutely no chance, however painful it is to admit. "First order of business - Toph."

"What?"

He strokes his beard, looking thoughtful. "We'll have to work something out for you so you can, er, 'see' in the arena."

"I can manage," she says stiffly. 

"Yes, I'm sure you can," he continues, swift as a fox. "But there is nothing wrong with taking precautions. I will arrange for a walking stick to be placed at the Cornucopia." He winks, but of course she can't see him do it. "It may even have a few tricks up it's sleeve."

"I don't need a special stick," she snaps, her fists clenched. "I don't need anyone's help."

Sokka rolls his eyes. She can't seriously think that she doesn't need help? She won't last a day in her condition. He won't even last a day, and he has his sight. She doesn't. How can she be so snippy with Iroh? Doesn't she want a chance at life?

The truth hits him with a slap. She doesn't. 

That's why she's here. She didn't ask for this, she volunteered. Why else would she? There can be no other reason. Toph must have a secret death wish. Why, he has no clue. What could possibly be wrong with her rich and haughty life?

Though he's never included Toph in image of the rich and haughty. She never seemed to run with her parent's crowd, with her father's crowd. She gave him pity bread, after all. They might not be friends, but they weren't just nothing. She has shared talk with him, shared secrets. She kissed him on the cheek today. That was something her father would most certainly not approve of. She has a rebellious streak, and Sokka has to admire that about her. There must be something he does not know.

"Ah, but you do," Iroh says. "I'll have the stick added to the weapons immediately."

"I told you. I don't need any help. I'm strong enough for this."

"Accepting help is it's own kind of strength," he says quietly, and Sokka snorts involuntarily. He can't be serious. That isn't strength, that's charity. No matter how flawed his father is, he knows he would rather die than accept charity. It simply isn't done in District 12.

Iroh shoots him a glance and he softens before turning to Toph. He doesn't want her to die, but he doesn't see what he can do to prevent it.

"Toph..." 

"Oh, not you, too," she snarls, turning to the sound of his voice. "You know I can get around without help, you know me better than anyone."

He blinks. "I do?"

At that her face turns bright red and he regrets saying anything at all, but it's the truth. How can he be the person who knows Toph best? He thinks he can safely say she is his closest friend - possibly his only one, if you didn't count Katara - but certainly it isn't reversed. Toph is the daughter of the mayor. Toph must be rolling in friends. 

"Yes," she frowns. "Just... I can manage all right? Put the stick in if you want, but I can't promise I'll use it. Or try."

"Well, I can see that's the best thing I'm going to get out of you, eh?" Iroh says. "I see. I'll add it, just in case."

Toph merely grunts and turns on her heel, no doubt headed to the enormous rooms that have been bestowed onto them. He watches her leave, then goes in the opposite direction to his own room. He needs to think.

For a while he just stands staring out the train window, wishing he could open it, to feel the air on his cheeks once more. In the distance he sees the lights of another District. 7? 10? He doesn't know, but he wonders about the people there, settling in for bed, drawing their shutters. That makes him think of his own home. What are they doing now, his father and Katara? Were they able to eat supper? The fish stew and the strawberries? Or did it lie untouched on their plates? Did they watch the recap of the reaping on the battered TV that leans against the wall? Surely there were more tears. Is his father holding up, being strong for Katara? Or has he already begun to slip away, leaving the weight of what he is about to do on his sister's fragile shoulders?

Imagining his home makes him ache with loneliness. This day has been endless. Could he have been hunting only this morning? It seems like a lifetime ago, like a long dream that transformed into a nightmare. Maybe if he goes to sleep he will wake up back in District 12, where he belongs.

The drawers of this endless room no doubt hold endless amounts of pajamas, but he just shrugs off his shirt and pants and crawls into bed in his underwear. If he's going to cry, now would be the time to do it, but no tears come. He's too numb and tired, and so he lets the train rock him into oblivion.

Distorted sunlight is pouring through the curtains when Ty Lee's perfectly manicured fingers are rapping on his door and calling out in her prim voice, "Up, up, up! It's going to be a big, big, big day!"

He puts the blue top and black pants back on, since it's only slightly crumpled from spending the night on the floor. His wrist jerks involuntarily, and Toph's bracelet jangles against his skin. It's cold, but somehow he doesn't think of it that way. He leaves it on. It doesn't matter, anyway, they can't be far from the Air Temples now, and once they reach the city his stylist will dictate his look for the opening ceremonies tonight. 

As he enters the dining car, Ty Lee brushes past him, muttering incoherently under her breath. For a moment he tries to imagine what it must be like inside that woman's head. What thoughts fill her, day in and day out? He has no idea. Iroh has a cup of tea, his eyes slightly crossed. Toph holds a roll and looks slightly embarrassed. 

"Sit down, sit down," Iroh beckons, waving him over. The second he sits down he is served an enormous platter of food; eggs, ham, fried potatoes, an ice-filled jug of fruit, a basket of rolls that would no doubt keep his family fed for a week. An elegant glass of orange juice, a cup of coffee, and a steaming mug of something brown he's never seen before.

"They call it hot chocolate," Toph says. "It's good."

He takes a sip, and is surprised at how easily the soft liquid seeps down his throat. Even though he is hungry, he ignores the food until he's drained his cup. It's unlike anything he's ever had before. Only then does he stuff his face, taking care not to overdo it on the richest stuff. Once his father told him that he always eats like he'll never see food again. And he said, "I won't unless I bring it home." That shut him up. 

When he can no longer take in another bite, he sits back and obersves his companions. Toph is still eating, breaking off pieces of roll and dipping them in her hot chocolate. Her hand hesitates ever so often, and he realizes that she probably has no idea where the mug is each time. He wonders how she can possibly live like that. Iroh hasn't paid much attention to the platter set before him, instead choosing to focus on his tea cup. Judging from the steam rising up, it must be very hot, and he watches as Iroh takes a sip, shudders, and allows his eyes to cross for a full ten seconds. Then they straighten themselves and he repeats the process. Over and over and over again. 

He realizes the reason District 12 tributes never stand a chance is seated right in front of him. How could they, when all they've got for a mentor is this happy-go-lucky, dreamy eyed man, so content and blissful? It isn't just that they've been underfed and lacking training. Some of their tributes have been stormg enough to make a go of it, but they rarely get sponsors and he's a big part of the reason why. The rich people who back tributes expect someone classier than Iroh to deal with.

"So, you're supposed to give us advice," he says to him.

"Ah, yes. Here's some advice," Iroh says. "Stay alive." Apparently he finds this funny, for he throws back his head and laughs, his potbelly jiggling. He grits his teeth and glances at Toph, and is surprised to see the hardness in her eyes. 

"That's very funny," she says. Then she lashes out and smacks his hand, causing the cup to shatter against the floor and soak the old man in hit brown liquid. "Only not to us."

Iroh considers this a moment, then, quick as a fox, reaches his hand out. Sokka immediately comes to the conclusion that he plans to hit her, so he grabs his knife and drives it into the table, barely missing his fingers. 

"Well, well, well, what's this?" Iroh says thoughtfully. "Did I really get a pair of fighters this year?"

Toph doesn't move from her position, her hand still raised as though prepares to strike. Sokka keeps his hand tightly wound around the knife handle.

"You," Iroh says. "Can you hit anything with that knife besides a table?"

The bow and arrow is his weapon, but he's spent a fair few years marrying other weapons as well, knives among them. He yanks the knife out of the table and hurls it at the wall. He was hoping to get a good, solid stick, but it lodges between the panels of wood, making him look a lot better than he is.

"Stand over here, both of you," says Iroh, nodding to the center of the room. Sokka moves, but Toph doesn't. He sighs and grabs her hand, pulling her to where he indicated. Iroh circles them, staring into their faces, prodding their arms. "Hmm. Well, you're not entirely hopeless. Seem fit. Once your stylists get ahold of you, they'll enhance your attractiveness."

Neither of them question this. The Hunger Games aren't a beauty contest, but the best-looking tributes always seem to pull more sponsors. 

"Okay. I'll make a deal with you," he finally says. "You don't interfere with my meditation, and I'll stay earthly enough to help you. You must do exactly as I tell you, though."

It's not much of a deal, but it's still a big step forward from ten minutes ago.

"All right," Toph says tightly.

He pats her shoulder, then faces him. He nods.

"In a few minutes we'll be pulling into the station. You'll be put in the hands of your stylists. You might not like what they do with tou, but you'll have to bear it."

"But -" Toph begins.

"No buts. Don't resist." Iroh takes the teapot and cup and leave the car. As the door swings shut behind him, the car goes dark. They must be in the tunnel that runs up through the mountains to the Air Temples. The mountains form a natural barrier between the Air Temples and the eastern districts.

He and Toph stand in silence as the train speeds along. The tunnel goes on and on, and he thinks of the tons of rock separating him from the sky. His chest tightens. He hates being encased this way, and it reminds him of his mother, and the mines that buried her, forever in the darkness. 

The train finally slows, and suddenly bright light floods the compartment. He can't help it - he rushes to the window to glimpse what he's only seen on television. The Air Temples, the ruling city of Avatar. The cameras have not lied about its grandeur, it's strange people and weird fashions.

The people begin to point at them eagerly as they recognize them, and Sokka notices Toph has crept up quietly behind him. Her fingers brush his, and he resists the urge to take her hand, the way he had when leading her. He shakes this feeling. Toph is not his friend anymore. She is his enemy, his death sentence. And she may have given up at life, but he had a sister that's depending on him. He plans to fight to his very last breath.


	4. The Parade

Sokka grits his teeth as Venia, a woman with aqua hair and gold facial tattoos, yanks yet another strip of hair from his eyebrows. "Sorry!" she pipes in her ridiculous Airbender accent. "You're just so hairy!"

Why do these people speak with such a high pitch? No wonder it's impossible not to mimic them.

Venia twists into what's supposed to be a sympathetic expression. "Good news, though. We're almost done with your eyebrows!"

Woop-dee-doo, he thinks as he grips the edge of the table.

He has been in the hands of these three people in the Remake Center for over three hours and he still hasn't met his stylist. Apparently she has no interest in seeing him until he's had a good enough rubdown, and has been deemed attractive enough to be in her presence. He has been scrubbed down with a gritty foam that removed not only dirt but at least three layers of skin, turning his nails into uniform shapes, and riding his face of the meager stubble that had been growing recently. That included thinning his eyebrows, which was a whole new type of pain. But he has kept his part of the deal with Iroh, and no objection has escaped his lips.

"You're doing well," another member, Flavius, says. He has orange locks cascading in corks around his face, and a strange shade of lipstick. "If there's one thing we can't stand here, it's a whiner. Grease him down!"

Venia and Octavia, a plump woman whose entire body has for some reason been dyed a pale shade of green, rub him down with a lotion that stings at first but then soothes his burning skin. Then they pull him from the table and transfer him to the center of the room, whipping off his robe in the process. He now stands, completely naked in front of three strangers, as they circle him and poke and prod and tweeze last bits of hair. He knows he should be embarrassed, but somehow these people don't make him feel any more self conscious than if a trio of oddly colored birds had been pecking around his feet.

"Excellent! You look like a human being now," Flavius says as they step back to admire their work, and they all laugh.

He forces his lips to smile. "Thank you," he says sweetly. "We don't have much cause to look nice in District Twelve."

That wins them over completely. "Of course you don't, you poor darling!" says Octavia, clasping her hands to her heart in distress.

"But don't worry," Venia says. "By the time Suki is done with you, you're going to be absolutely stunning!"

"We promise! You know, now that we've stripped you down, you're not so horrible!" says Flavius encouragingly. "Let's call Suki!"

They dart out of the room. It's hard to hate his prep team. They're such idiots, but in an odd way, he knows that they're sincerely trying to help him.

He glances at the cold white walls and resists the urge to wrap his robe around him again. But this Suki, his stylist, will surely make him remove it. Instead he touches the shaved sides of his head, the ponytail at the back of it. His warrior's wolf tail, as his father had used to call it. When his mother was still alive.

The door opens and a young woman who must be Suki enters. She can't be more than twenty, but somehow she seems to be his age. He is taken aback by how normal she looks. Her short brown hair is cropped around her chin, a small amount half pulled pack. No part of her seems to be altered into the grotesque fashions of the Air Temples. She's dressed in a simple black shirt and pants, and the only thing that's out of place is her eyeliner, which is gold and brings out flecks in her eyes.

"Hello, Sokka. I'm Suki, your stylist," she says in a quiet voice that somehow lacks the Airbender accent.

"Hello," he says cautiously. 

"Just give me a moment, okay?" she asks. She walks around his naked body, not touching him, but taking in every inch of it with her eyes. "Who did your hair?"

"My father," he answers. 

"It's exquisite. Classic, really. And it works very well with your profile. He has very clever taste."

Sokka had been expecting someone flamboyant, someone older trying desperately to look younger, someone waiting to get ahold of him. Suki has met none of these expectations. 

"You're new, aren't you? I don't think I've seen you before," he comments. Most of the stylists are familiar, constants in the ever-changing pool of tributes. Some have been around in all of his sixteen years. 

"Yes," she says. "This is my first year in the Games."

"So they gave you District Twelve."

"I asked for Twelve," she says without further clarification. "Why don't you put on your robe and we'll have a little chat?"

Relived, he pulls on his robe and follows her through a door into a sitting room. Two red couches face each other with a wooden table between them, overflowing with food. Chicken and chunks of oranges cooked in a creamy sauce laid on a bed of pearly white grain, tiny green peas and onions, rolls shaped like flowers, and a pudding the color of honey.

His eyes fade as he takes in plate after plate. How can these people not understand what it's like to not have food handed to them? What would his days be filled with if he did not have to spend them in the woods so that his family could live another day? What fills their waking hours? How do they occupy their time?

He looks up to find Suki's eyes on him. "We must seem despicable to you," she says.

Has she seen this on his face, or has she somehow read his thoughts? Either way, she's right. The whole lot of them are despicable. 

"Anyway," she continues crisply. "So, Sokka, about your costume for th4 opening ceremonies. My partner, Satoru, is your fellow tribute Toph's stylist, and we've decided to dress you in complementary outfits. As you know, it's tradition to reflect the flavor of your District."

He does know this. For the opening ceremonies, you're supposed to wear something that suggests your District's principal industry. District 5, power. District 11, agriculture. District 3, factories. And that means that, coming from 12, he and Toph will no doubt be in come coal miner's getup. Since no stylist has been able to make the skimpy jumpsuits look attractive, he braces himself for the worst.

"So, I'll be in a coal miner's outfit?" he asks.

"Not exactly." Suki has a strange glint in her eyes. "Satoru and I think the coal thing is way overdone. No one will remember you in that. It's our job to make the District Twelve tributes unforgettable."

He exhales and tries to seem excited.

"So rather than focus on the coal itself, we're going to focus on the mining," says Suki. "And what are the most prominent things in the mines? Water and rock." She sees his expression and grins. "I hope you're not afraid of drowning, Sokka."

A few hours later, he is dressed in what will either be the most sensational or the strangest costume in the opening ceremonies. He's in a black unitard that has streaks of brown and gray running up and down it, giving the impression that he has been coated in mud. Protruding from his legs, shoulders and arms are small, rock-like lumps that have small holes in them. Shiny leather boots lace up to his mid calf.

"I can see how this represents rock," he says to Suki as she walks around him. "But where's the water?"

She taps the lumps that lie on his shoulders. "See these rocks? Once you get on the chariot and it's your turn to go, I want you to press this button and don't touch them." She points to a small circle just below where his arm falls. "You'll see what happens then."

This doesn't exactly reassure Sokka, but there's no time for him to voice his concerns. Toph shows up, dressed in an identical costume. Her prep team and her stylist, Satoru, join Suki, and they all discuss how marvelous they look. Then they're whisked down to the bottom level of the Remake Center, which is essentially a gigantic stable. The opening ceremonies are about to start. Pairs of tributes are being loaded into their chariots, each one pulled by four horses. Suki and Satoru direct them to their chariot, arrange them just so, then move off to consult with each other.

"What do you think?" Sokka whispers to Toph. "About this?"

"I think they're both nuts," she whispers back. "I know we're supposed to go along with Iroh, but I don't think he took this into consideration."

"Where is Iroh, anyway? Shouldn't he be here protecting us from this?"

"If what they say is true, then it's probably not wise to have him near any sort of liquid," she mutters. "He'd just drink it."

And suddenly they're both laughing. He guesses they're both so nervous about the Games and more pressingly, drowning in their own costume, they're not acting sensibly. 

The opening music begins. It's easy to hear, blasted around the Air Temples. Massive doors slide open revealing crowd-limed streets. The ride lasts about twenty minutes and ends up near the front, where they will welcome them, play the anthem, and escort them to the Training Center, which will be their home/prison until the Games begin.

The tributes from District 1 ride out. They look beautiful, spray-painted silver, in tasteful tunics glittering with jewels. District 1 makes luxury items, and they are always favorites.

District 2 gets into position, wearing bronze gladiator-type outfits. They looks stunning, but as Sokka glimpses them he notes that it does clash with the boy, who has an ugly red scar covering half his face. With a jolt he remembers him from the reel shown the previous day.

"Do you see that guy?" he says to Toph as District 3 rides out.

"No," she deadpans, and he curses himself. He really needs to remember this.

"Sorry."

"Whatever."

In no time at all they are approaching the door and he can see the overcast sky, it's light turning gray with the evening. The tributes from 11 are just rolling out when he catches sight of Suki, off to the side with Satoru. Both of them are waving their arms wildly. 

"Push your button," he hisses. Toph blinks, confused, but there's no time to explain. The chariot is already moving. "Now!"

He presses his own just as she gets the message, slamming her thumb down onto the circular pad, and they are off, the horses bouncing along. He looks at Toph and realizes that, with crystal water pouring down her body, she is dazzling. And he must be too.

The crowd's initial alarm at their appearance quickly changes to cheers and shouts of, "District Twelve!" Every head is turned their way, pulling the focus from three chariots ahead of them. At first, he is frozen, but then he catches glimpse of them on a large television screen and is floored by how breathtaking they look. 

In the twilight, the water illuminates their faces. It ripples brightly, and it had to be ehanced, for he has never seen such blue water. It cascades off of them, dripping down the rocks and mixing with the muddy streaks. They look as though they have been blessed by an ocean spirit. They look otherworldly. And Toph... Toph looks absolutely beautiful. 

Before he can change his mind, he grabs her hand. She moves to jerk it away, but he whispers, "Come on, they'll love it!" And so she allows him to hold it. He lifts his chin higher and thrusts their enclosed hands into the air, a movement of trust, a link. 

The pounding music, the cheers, the admiration work their way into his blood, and he can't suppress his excitement. Suki has given him a great advantage. No one will forget him. Not his look, not his name. Sokka. For the first time, he feels a flicker of hope rising up in him. Surely there must be ome sponsor willing to take him on. And with a little extra help, some food, the right weapons, why should he count himself out of the Games?

It's not until they reach the end that he realizes that he must have completely stopped the circulation in Toph's hand. That's how tightly he's been holding it. He looks down at their fingers and loosens his grasp, but she tightens it. 

"Don't let go," she says. The water makes her green eyes dance. "I might fall off."

"Okay," he says, though it feels strange to be holding hands when soon they will be locked in the arena to kill each other. He tells himself to knock it off. It was his idea, anyway.

The twelve chariots come up to President Ozai's mansion, and they come to a halt. The music stops. The president, a tall, heavy set man with oil black hair, gives them the official welcome from a balcony. It's tradition to have the cameras cut to each tribute in turn, but he can see on the screen that he and Toph are getting more than their fair share of airtime. The darker it becomes, the harder it is the shy away from their watery flickering. The cameras finally cut away as they are being led away into the Training Center. 

The doors have only just shut behind them when they're engulfed by prep teams, whose words are unintelligible and they babble around them. As he glances around, he sees a lot of other tributes shooting them dirty looks which confirms that they have outshone them all. The boy from District 2 glares with such fire that Sokka looks away quickly. Then Suki and Satoru are there, helping them down and congratulating them. Toph's hand is torn away from his as Satoru presses another button and the water stops flowing.

"Thanks," she says. "I was getting a little shaky."

"I'm sure no one noticed," he says back, and she grins at him. A smile that's so genuinely sweet with just the right amount of shyness that an unexpected warmth flows through him.

A warning bell goes off in his head. Don't be so stupid, he reminds himself. She'll be trying to kill you soon. Don't get sucked in. 

But because two can play at that game, he leans down and kisses her on the cheek. Right where she had kissed him.


	5. The Training Center

The Training Center has a tower designed exclusively for the tributes and their teams. It will be Sokka's home until the actual Games begin. Each district has an entire floor, and you can get there by simply entering the elevator and pressing the number of your District. Easy enough.

He's been in an elevator a few times before, once to receive the medal for his mother's death, and then the previous day to say his final goodbyes to his family. But the one in the Justice Building at home is a dark, creaky thing. This one is made entirely of glass so you can watch the world below you shrink as you rise into the air. 

Apparently, Ty Lee's duties did not conclude at the station. She and Iroh will be overseeing him and Toph right into the arena. In a way, that's a plus because at least counted on to corral them around effectively whereas they haven't seen Iroh since they made their deal on the train. Probably off drinking something, or meditating. 

Ty Lee, on the other hand, is all in a tither. She said that they were the first team she's had to make a splash at the opening ceremonies. She's complimentary about not just their costumes, but the way they carried themselves. And, the way she tells it, Ty Lee knows everyone who's anyone in the Air Temples and has been talking them up all day, trying to win them sponsors. 

"I've been very mysterious," she says, her eyes half shut for some reason. "Because, of course, Iroh hasn't been bothered to tell me half your strategies. But I've done my best with what I had to work with. How Sokka tried to volunteer for his sister. How Toph came to his aid. How you've both overcome the barbarism of your District."

Barbarism? That's ironic coming from the woman helping to prepare them for slaughter.

"Everyone has their reservations, naturally. You being from the coal district. But I said, and this was quite clever of me, I said, 'Well, if you out enough pressure on coal it turns to pearls!" Ty Lee beams at them so brilliantly he wonders if he'll become blind like Toph, and they have no choice but to clap politely and respond enthusiastically to her cleverness. 

Coal doesn't turn into pearls. Pearl's are born of the sea, hidden in shells and clams. Possibly she meant coal turns into diamonds, but that isn't true either. He's heard that they have some machine in District 1 that can turn graphite into diamonds, but mining graphite was part of District 13's job before they were destroyed. 

He wonders if the people she told this to either know or care.

"Unfortunately, I can't seal sponsor deals for you. Only Iroh can do that," Ty Lee continues grimly. "But don't worry, I'll get him to the table at gunpoint if I have to."

Although lacking in many departments, Ty Lee has a determination that he can't help but admire. 

His quarters are larger than their entire house back home. Everything is plush, like on the train, but also has so many automatic gadgets and buttons that he's sure he won't have time to press them all. The shower alone has a panel with more than a hundred options you can choose regarding bubbles, scents, oils, shampoos, and massaging sponges. When you step out onto a mat, heaters come on that blow-dry your entire body. Instead of struggling with the knots in his wet hair, he simply presses a button that sends a warm breeze through his scalp, untangling and drying his hair almost instantly. He ties it back up into its ponytail. 

Next, he programs the closet for an outfit to his taste. The windows zoom in and out and show an entirely different place if you so choose. You need only whisper a type of food into a small mouthpiece and it appears, hot and fresh, from a panel on the wall in less than a minute. He walks around the room eating goose and puffy bread until Ty Lee calls him for dinner. 

Good. He's starving.

Toph, Suki, and Satoru are standing out on a balcony that overlooks the Air Temples when we enter the dining room. He's glad to see the stylists, particularly after hearing that Iroh will be joining them. A meal overseen by just Ty Lee and Iroh is bound to be a disaster. Besides, dinner isn't really about the food, it's about planning our their strategies, and Suki and Satoru have already proven how valuable they are.

A silent young man dressed in a white tunic offers them all cups of tea just as Iroh shows up. He doesn't refuse the tea, but when starts up on the soup, Sokka realizes that this is the first time he's seen him eat. Maybe he really will pull himself together long enough to help them. 

Suki and Satoru have a civilizing effect on Ty Lee and Iroh. At least they're addressing each other decently. And they both have nothing but praise for their opening acts. While they make small talk, Sokka finds himself staring at Roph just as much as he's stuffing himself. Her pale eyes are directed at him, but somehow he doesn't think she knows they are. She looks like she's anywhere but here, inside her head.

About halfway through the cup of tea, his head starts to feel foggy, so he changes to water instead. They must have added some fumes in it to make it have a drowsy effect. How Iroh can stand walking around like this fulltime is beyond him.

They eat a cake that has a watery effect in honor of their debut and move into a sitting room to watch the replay of the opening ceremonies that's being broadcast. A few of the other couples made a nice impression, but none of them can hold a candle to them. Even their own party lets out an "Ahh!" as they show them coming out of the Remake Center. 

"Whose idea was the hand holding?" asks Iroh.

"Mine," he says.

"Just the perfect touch of rebellion," says Suki. "Very nice."

Rebellion? He has to consider that a moment. But when he remembers the other couples, standing stiffly apart, never touching or acknowledging each other, as if their fellow tribute did not exist, as if the Games has already begun, he knows what Suki means. Presenting themselves not as enemies but friends has distinguished them just as much as the watery costumes.

"Tomorrow morning is the first training session. Meet me for breakfast and I'll tell you exactly how I want you to play it," Iroh says to him and Toph. "Now, go get some sleep. We grownups need to talk."

Sokka stands up and moves to go, but notices Toph having trouble. He hesitates, and somehow she must be able to sense it.

"Let me hold your arm," she mutters. "Just until we reach my room."

"Oh. Uh, sure." He allows her to take his arm and leads her down the corridor. Their rooms are adjacent, so he doesn't have to go far. He drops her off and makes sure she can tend to herself.

"Thanks," she whispers.

"Don't mention it." She's almost inside, her fingers closing the door, when he blurts out, "Your mother came to say goodbye to me."

She pauses. "Did she?"

"Yes. She brought me tarts. She made them with the strawberries I gave her."

Toph raises her eyebrows as if this is news. But he knows that she can lie smoothly, so he's not ready to claim her innocence. "Really? Well, she likes you and your sister. I think she wishes she had a son instead of a blind daughter."

The thought that he and Katara may have been discussed at the Beifong dinner table is slightly amusing to him. Surely it must have been when the father was out of the room.

"She knew your father when they were kids," says Toph.

Another surprise, but probably true. "Yeah, he grew up in town."

They're quiet, then he says, "See you in the morning."

She snorts. "You will."

"Right. Um, sorry."

"It's okay," she says bitterly. "Soon enough it won't matter."

And with that happy note she slams the door in his face. He shakes his head and walks down the hall to his room. Toph has no chance of winning. She must know that, deep down. He only wishes he could do something about it, force her to accept the special stick Iroh offered her. But these are the Hunger Games. It's every man for himself.

Once he finds sleep, it is filled with disturbing dreams. Gory images from earlier Games entwine with Katara, her eyes and mouth overflowing with water; his father, withdrawn and unresponsive; Toph, her useless eyes nothing more than balls of clay. He wakes up screaming for his mother to run, to save herself as the min explodes.

Dawn is breaking through the windows. The Air Temples have a misty, haunted look about them. His head aches and he must have bitten his cheek during the night - his tongue discovers ragged flesh and blood.

Slowly he drags himself out of bed and into the shower, where he pushes random buttons and ends up doused in warm water and smelling like roses. When he's dried off, he finds an outfit has been laid out for him. Tight burgundy pants, a sea blue tunic, and leather shoes. He puts his hair into its ponytail, and realizes it's the first time since the reaping that he has resembled himself. No fancy clothes, no watery capes. Just him. Looking like he could be headed for the woods. It calms him. 

Iroh didn't give him a specific time to meet for breakfast, and no one has come to escort him, but he's hungry so he heads down to the dining room. There he helps himself to a plate of rolls and dips them into hot chocolate, the way Toph did on the train. 

His mind wanders to his father and Katara. They must be up by now, his father making their breakfast of mush, Katara running water to heat with. She's exceptionally good at it, always seeming to coax the water out of the tap better than he ever could. Just two mornings ago, he was home. Can that be right? Yes, just two. What did they think of his watery debut last night? Did it give them hope, or did it simply add to their terror when they saw the reality of twenty four tributes circled together, knowing only one could live?

Iroh comes in, leading Toph by the arm, and Sokka feels a flicker of jealousy ignite in his stomach at the sight of someone else holding her hand. They fill their plates and join him at the table. He notices that Toph is wearing the same outfit as him, and rolls his eyes. This twins act is going to blow up in their faces once the Games begin. Then he remembers Iroh telling him to do exactly as the stylists tell him. If it was anyone but Suki, he might be tempted to ignore it.

He's nervous about the training. There will be three days in which all of the tributes practice together. On the last afternoon, they'll each have a session with the Gamemakers to perform in private. Seeing their faces on television is one thing, but the thought of seeing the other tributes face to face makes him queasy. He can't even begin to imagine what it must be like for Toph, who cannot see them at all.

When Iroh finishes several bowls of stew and a good many cups of tea, he sits back and sighs. "So, let's get down to business. Training. Firstly, now is when you just decide if you wish to be coached separately or together."

"Why would you coach us separately?" Sokka asks.

Iroh shrugs. "Say if you had a secret skill you don't want the other to know about."

He glances at Toph, who scoffs. "I don't have any secret skills," she says. "And I already know yours. I mean, I've eaten enough of your squirrels."

He thinks about that. Somehow he had always pictured the mayor's family eating like the rich people do. He'd never imagined them dining to food he may have shot himself. 

"You can coach us together," he tells Iroh. Toph nods.

"All right. Now, tell me what you can do," says Iroh. 

"I can't do anything," Toph says. "Unless you count sitting still and looking pretty."

"A fine skill, but unfortunately one that won't be of much use once the Games begin," Iroh says. "Sokka, I already know you're handy with a knife."

"Not really. But I can hunt," he explains. "With a bow and arrow."

"I see. And are you any good?"

He has to think about it. He's been putting food on the table for four years, which is no small feat. He isn't as good as his mother was, but she had had more practice. His aim is pretty good, though his traps and snares are a bit weak. "I'm all right."

"He's amazing," Toph cuts in. "My mother buys her squirrels and strawberries. She always compliments how he gets each one right in the eye. It's the same with the rabbits and deer she sells the butcher."

This assessment of his skills from Toph takes him totally by surprise. "What are you doing?"

"What are you doing? If he's going to help you, he has to know what you're capable of. Don't underrate yourself," she says. And maybe he's imagining it, but there is a slight tinge to her normally pale cheeks. 

"Well - what about you? I've seen you out in town. You can lift hundred pound bags of flour at the bakery," he snaps at her. "Tell him that. That's not nothing."

"Yes, and I'm sure the arena will be filled with bags of flour for me to chuck at people. It's not the same as using a weapon, or, hey, your sight," she shoots back. 

"She can run," he tells Iroh. "She came in first place in our school competition last year, and the year before that."

"Please, at school I know the track! There's no use for speed if I can't tell where I'm going!"

"If it turns out we're in a valley, you'll have no problem! And you're great at foraging, you'll have the landscape surveyed in no time. If I get jumped, I'm dead!"

"But you won't be! You'll be up in a trees somewhere, eating your prey and shooting arrows at the rest of us. Do you know what my father said to me when he came to say goodbye? He said, as if he was trying to cheer me up, he said that maybe District 12 will finally have a winner this year. Then I realized, he didn't mean me. He meant you!"

"Oh, he meant you," he says with a wave of dismissal.

"He said, 'He's a survivor, that one.' HE is," says Toph.

That pulls him up short. Did the mayor really say that? Did he put him over his daughter? He sees the pain in Toph's eyes and knows she isn't lying. Suddenly he is behind her house, in the pouring down rain, knocking on her door, knowing the mayor's wife has a taste for strawberries and hoping to sell some. Instead he leaves, his arms overflowing with loaves of bread from the little blind girl who answered. 

"But only because someone helped me," he whispers. 

Toph exhales, and he knows she remembers that day, too. But she just shrugs. "People will help you in the arena. They'll be tripping over each other to sponsor you."

"No more than you."

"Yeah, right. Sponsor the blind girl." She closes her eyes and slaps her hand on the table. "He has no idea. The effect he can have," she says to Iroh.

"Well, well. Well, well, well," Iroh says after a long pause of Sokka glaring at his roll and Toph refusing to look up. "Sokka, there's no guarantee of a bow and arrows in the arena, but during your private session with the Gamemakers, be sure to show them what you can do. Until then, steer clear of archery. How are your traps?"

"I know a few basic snares," he mutters.

"Good. That may be significant in terms of food," Iroh says. "And Toph, he's right. Never underestimate strength in the arena. Very often, physical power tilts the advantage to a player. There will be weights in the Training Center, but don't reveal how much you can lift or how fast you can run. Spend the time learning new skills. Throw a spear. Tie some knots. Save your best skills for the private sessions. Are we clear?"

He and Toph nod. 

"One last thing. In public, I want you by each other's sides every minute," Iroh says carefully. They both start to object, but he slams his hands down on the table. "Every single minute! And it's not just about Toph getting around, okay? It's not open for discussion. Every minute. Now, leave. Meet Ty Lee at the elevator at ten for training."

Sokka bites his lip and stalks back to his room, not bothering to help Toph get to hers. He slams the door, making sure it's loud enough for her to hear. Then he sits on the bed, hating Iroh, hating Toph, and hating himself for mentioning that day, so long ago in the rain.


	6. Consideration

Sokka seethes on his bed in the wake of Iroh's speech. It's such a joke! He and Toph pretending to be friends when soon enough they will be sentenced to death, and one might have to kill the other. The only mercy he prays for is for someone else to kill Toph. He can't do it. He knows that. 

He can hear Toph's voice in his head. He has no idea. The effect he can have. Obviously, she meant to demean him. Right? But a tiny part of him wonders if that was a compliment. That she meant he was appealing in some way. Like the attention she'd paid to his hunting. And apparently, he has not been as oblivious to her as he'd thought. The running. The flour. He has been watching the girl with the bread.

It's almost ten. He brushes his teeth and releases his hair from its ponytail. Anger temporarily blocked out his nervousness about meeting the other tributes, but now he can feel his anxiety rising again. By the time he meets Ty Lee and Toph by the elevator, he catches himself biting his nails. He stops at once.

The actual training rooms are below ground level of their building. With these elevators, the ride is less than a minute. As they descend Toph's fingers brush his, and he restrains from grabbing her hand. They're enemies now. 

The doors open to an enormous gymnasium filled with various weapons and obstacle courses. Although it's not yet ten, they are the last ones to arrive. The other tributes are gathered in a tense circle. They each have a square cloth with their District number pinned on their shirts. While someone attaches the number 12 on his back, he does a quick assessment. He and Toph are the only ones dressed alike.

As soon as they join the circle, the head trainer, an athletic woman named Kyoshi steps up and begins to explain the training schedule. Experts in each skill will remain at their stations. They will be free to travel from area to area as they choose, per their mentor's instructions. Some of the stations teach survival skills, others fighting techniques. They are forbidden to engage in any combative exercise with another tribute. There are assistants on hand if they want to practice with a partner. 

When Kyoshi begins to read down the list of the skill station, his eyes can't help flitting around to the other tributes. It's the first time they've all been assembled, on ground level, in simple clothes. His heart sinks. Almost all of the boys and at least half of the girls are bigger than he is, even though many of the other tributes have never been fed properly. You can see it in their bones, their skin, the hollow look in their eyes. He's not lacking in the height department, and overall his family's resourcefulness has given him an edge. The meat and plants from his days in the woods plus the exertion it took to get them has given him a healthier body than most around him. 

The exceptions would be the kids from wealthier districts, the volunteers, the ones who have been trained for this since they could walk. The tributes from 1, 2 and 4 traditionally have this look about them. In District 12, they're called the Career Tributes, or just the Careers. And like it or not, the winner will undoubtedly be one of them. 

The slight advantage he had coming into the Training Center, his watery entrance last night, seems to vanish in the presence of his competitors. The other tributes were jealous of them, but not because they were amazing. Because their stylists were. Now he sees nothing but contempt on the faces of the Careers, glaring not just at him but at Toph, who of course has no idea. Each of them has at least fifty pounds on both of them, and when Kyoshi releases them they head straight for the deadly weapons section and handle each one with ease.

He's torn from his staring by Toph nudging his arm. She is still beside him, per Iroh's instructions. "Where should we start?"

He looks around at the Careers, who are showing off, clearly trying to intimidate the field. Then at the others, the underfed and incompetent, shakily having their first lessons with a knife of an ax.

"Suppose we tie some knots," he says.

Toph grunts. "Right." She takes his hand and waits expectantly for him to lead her. And so he does, over to an empty station where the trainer seems pleased to have students. You get the feeling that the knot-tying class isn't the most popular station. When he realizes that Sokka knows something about snares, he shows them a simple, excellent trap that will leave a human competitor hanging by one leg from a tree. They concentrate on this skill for an hour until they both, even Toph, have mastered it. 

They then move on to camouflage, where Toph seems to genuinely enjoy swirling a combination of mud and clay and juices onto her pale skin, weaving a disguise seemingly made of vines and leaves. The trainer who works the station is full of enthusiasm at her work.

"My mother paints," she admits to him when the trainer isn't looking.

"Paints?" he asks. He's been distracted watching the scarred boy from District 2 spear a dummy from fifteen yards. "She paints what?"

"Just paints," she shrugs. "Sometimes she gives me a canvas too, and tells me which colors are which."

He considers this, and looks more critically at the design on her arm. The pattern suggests the sun falling through the leaves in the woods, dark and light at the same time. How can Toph, fifteen year old, blind, sheltered Toph become such an artist? Somehow the whole thing annoys him.

"Let's move on," he says gruffly, grabbing her hand.

So the next three days pass with he and Toph going quickly from station to station. They do pick up some valuable skills, from starting fires to knife throwing to making shelter. Despite Iroh's order to appear mediocre, Toph excels in running, and he sweeps the edible plants test without blinking an eye. They steer clear of archery and weightlifting though, wanting to save those for their private lessons.

The Gamemakers appeared early on the first day. Twenty or so men dressed in deep purple robes. They all sit in the elevated stands that surround the gymnasium, sometimes wandering around to watch them, jotting down notes, other times eating from the endless banquet that has been set for them, ignoring the lot of them. But they do seem to be keeping an eye on the District 12 tributes. Several times he's looked up to find one of their piercing gazes locked on him or Toph. 

Breakfast and dinner are served on their floor, but at lunch the twenty four of them eat in a dining room off the gymnasium. Food is displayed on carts and you serve yourself. The Career Tributes tend to gather rowdily around one table, as if to prove their superiority, that they have no fear of one another and consider the rest of them beneath notice. Most of the other tributes sit alone, like lost sheep. No one says a word. He and Toph eat together, and since Iroh keeps dogging them about it, try to keep up friendly conversation during the meals.

It's not easy to find a topic. Talking of home is painful, and discussing the present is unbearable. One day, Toph empties out their breadbasket and feels each one, telling him how they have been careful to include types from all the Districts. The fish-shaped loaf from 4. The crescent moon dotted with seeds from 11. Somehow, although it's made from the same stuff, it looks a lot more appetizing than the ugly day biscuits that are the norm in District 12.

"And there you have it," says Toph, scooping the bread back into the basket. 

"You certainly know a lot," he comments.

"Only about bread," she shrugs. "My mother bakes a lot. She does a lot of things when my father isn't looking, actually. Okay, now laugh as if I've said something funny."

They both give a somewhat convincing laugh and ignore the stares from around them.

"All right, your turn," she says. It's wearing them both out, Iroh's direction to be friendly. But still, he can sense a growing closeness between them. And it scares him. 

"Did I ever tell you about the time I was chased by a bear?" he asks.

"No," she answers with mock interest. "Do go on."

He tries to animate his face as he spins the tale of how he'd foolishly challenged a black bear over the right to a beehive. Toph laughs and asks questions right on cue. She's much better at putting up face than he is. She's used to it, he guesses. 

On the second day, while they're taking a shot at spear throwing, he feels Toph tense up behind him.

"What's wrong?" he hisses, throwing his spear, which he's not too bad at if he doesn't have to throw it a great distance.

"Someone's following us," she says, jerking her head. He follows her gaze and sees the little boy from District 11 standing a bit back, watching them. He's the twelve-year-old, the one who reminded him of Katara. Up close he looks about ten. He has stormy gray eyes and pale, milky skin, and stands tilted up on his toes with his arms slightly extended to his sides, as if ready to take flight at the slightest sound. It's impossible not to think of a bird.

"It's the boy from 11," he says to Toph, a bit more harshly than he intended. 

"I think his name is Aang," she tells him.

He bites his lip as he picks up another spear. Aang means peaceful, a cruel irony when the event that's about to take place is anything but. When his whole world is anything but.

Now that he knows he's there, it's hard to ignore the child. He slips up and joins them at different stations. Like him, he's clever with plants, light on his feet, and has good aim. He can hit every target with a slingshot. But what use is a slingshot against a 220-pound male with a sword?

Back on the District 12 floor, Iroh and Ty Lee grill them throughout breakfast and dinner about every moment of the day. Suki and Satoru aren't around, so there's no one to add any sanity to the meals. Not that Iroh and Ty Lee are fighting anymore. Instead they seem to be of one mind, determined to whip them into shape. Full of endless directions about what they should do and not do in training. Soon enough they both become fed up and surly.

When they finally escape to bed on the second night, Toph mumbles, "Someone should get Iroh some tea."

He makes a sound that is somewhere between a snort and a laugh, and she looks pleased to have gotten a reaction. The line that draws them together is getting stronger. He knows it shouldn't. He knows. But it does anyway. 

On the third day of training, they start to call them out of lunch for their private sessions with the Gamemakers. District by district, first the girl, then the boy. Which means that as the male from 12 he is slated to go last. They linger in the dining room, unsure where else to go. No one comes back once they have left. As the room empties, the pressure to appear friendly lightens. By the time they call Aang, they are left alone. They sit in silence until they summon Toph. She rises.

"Remember what Iroh said about being sure to throw the weights." The words tumble out of his mouth without permission. 

"I will," she says. "You... shoot straight."

He nods. He doesn't know what to say now. The easiness of being together is gone now that they are physically here. Although if he can't win, he knows that he wants Toph to. Better for his District, for his father and Katara.

After about fifteen minutes, they call out Sokka's name. He smooths his hair, sets his shoulders back, and walks into the gymnasium. Instantly he knows he's in trouble. They've been here too long, the Gamemakers. Sat through twenty three other demonstrations. Had too much wine, most of them. Want more than anything to go home.

There's nothing he can do but continue with the plan. He walks to the archery station and has to contain his grin at the sight of the bows. Carved of wood and plastic and metal, feathers cut on flawless uniform lines. He chooses a bow, strings it, and slings the quiver of arrows over his shoulder. There's a shooting range, but it's too limited. Bull's eyes and human silhouettes. He walks to the center of the gymnasium and pick his first target; the dummy used for knife practice.

Even as he pulls back on the bow he knows something is wrong. The string is too tight, the bow too fragile. He misses the dummy by a couple of inches and loses the little attention he had been gathering. For a moment, he is humiliated, then he heads back to the bull's eye. He shoots and shoots until he has the feel of these new weapons.

Back in the center of the gymnasium, he takes his initial position and skewers the dummy through the heart. Then he severs the rope that holds the sandbag for boxing, and the bag splits open as it slams to the ground. Without pausing, he shoulder rolls forward, comes up on one knee, and sends an arrow into one of the hanging lights high above the floor. It sends sparks to the ground.

It's excellent shooting. He turns to the Gamemakers. A few are nodding in approval, but the majority of them are fixated on a roast pig that has just arrived at their banquet table. 

And suddenly he is furious, that with his life on the line, they don't even have the decency to pay attention to him. That he's being upstaged by a dead pig. His heart starts to pound. He can feel his face burning. Without thinking, he pulls an arrow from the quiver and sends it straight at the Gamemakers' table. He hears shouts of alarm as people stumble back. The arrow skewers the apple in the pig's mouth and pins it to the wall behind it. Everyone stares at him in shock.

"Thank you for your consideration," he says. Then he gives a slight bow and walks straight toward the exit without being dismissed.


	7. The Scores

As he strides toward the elevator, he flings his bow to one side and his quiver to the other. He brushes past the gaping Airbenders who guard the elevators and hit the number twelve button with his fist. The doors slide open and he zips upward. He actually makes it back to his floor before the tears start running down his cheeks. He can hear the other calling him from the sitting room, but he flies down the hall into his room, bolts the door, and flings himself onto his bed. Then he begins to sob.

Now he's done it! Now he's ruined everything! If he'd stood even a ghost of a chance, it vanished when he sent that arrow flying at the Gamemakers. What will they do to him now? Arrest him? Execute him? What was he thinking, shooting at the Gamemakers? Of course, he wasn't, he was shooting at that apple because he was so angry at being ignored. He wasn't trying to kill one of them. If he was, they'd be dead!

Oh, what does it matter? It's not like he was going to win the Games anyway. Who cares what they do to him? What really scares him is what they might do to his father and Katara, how his family might suffer because of his impulsiveness. Will they take their few belongings, or send his father to prison and Katara to the community home, or kill them? They wouldn't kill them, would they? Why not? What do they care?

He should have stayed and apologized. Or laughed, like it was a big joke. Then maybe he would have found cone leniency. But instead he stalked out of there in the most disrespectful manner possible.

Iroh and Ty Lee are knocking on his door. He shouts for them to go away and eventually they do. It takes at least an hour for him to cry himself out. Then he just lies curled up on the bed, stroking the silken sheets, watching the sun set on the artificial Air Temple. 

At first he expects guards to come for him. But as time passes, it seems less and less likely. He calms down. They still need a male tribute from District 12, don't they? If the Gamemakers want to punish him, they can do it publicly. Wait until he's in the arena and sic starving wild animals on him. You can bet they'll make sure he doesn't have a bow and arrow to defend himself.

Before that, though, they'll give him a score so low, no one in their right mind will sponsor him. That's what will happen tonight. Since the training isn't open to viewers, the Gamemakers announce a score for each player. It gives the audience a starting place for the betting that will continue through the Games. The number, which is between one and twelve, one being irredeemingly low and twelve being unattainably high, signifies the promise of a tribute. The mark is not a guarantee of which person will win; it's only an indication of the potential a tribute showed in training. Often, because of the variables in the arena, high-scoring tributes go down almost immediately. The boy who won the Games the previous year received only a three.

Still, the scores can help or hurt an individual tribute in terms of sponsorship. He'd been hoping to get at least a six or seven based on his shooting, but that chance has been thrown out the window. He'll have the lowest of the twenty four of them, he knows it. If no one sponsors him, his chances of staying alive decrease to zero.

When Ty Lee taps on the door to call him to dinner, he decides he may as well. The scores will be televised tonight. It's not like he can hide what happened forever. He goes to the bathroom and washes his face, but it remains red and splotchy. 

Everyone is waiting at the table, even Suki and Satoru. He wishes the stylists hadn't shown up for some reason. He doesn't like the idea of disappointing them. It's like he's thrown away all the hard work they did for his opening ceremony without a second thought. He avoids looking at anyone as he takes small sips of fish soup. The saltiness reminds him of his tears.

The adults chit chat about the weather forecast, and something kicks him under the table. He glances up, and Toph's sightless eyes are locked onto his. She raises her eyebrows in a question. What happened? He kicks her back softly. Then, as they're serving the main course, he hears Iroh say, "All right. Toph, Sokka, how did your private sessions go?"

Toph jumps to his rescue. "I don't know that it mattered. By the time I showed up, no one even bothered to pay attention to me. I could just feel it. I threw around some heavy stuff and ran a few laps until they told me to go."

That makes him feel a bit better. It's not like Toph attacked the Gamemakers, but at least she was annoyed too. 

"And you, son?" asks Iroh.

Somehow Iroh calling him son ticks him off enough that he's at least able to speak. "I shot an arrow at the Gamemakers."

Everyone stops eating. "You did what?" The horror in Ty Lee's voice confirms his suspicions. 

"I shot an arrow at them. Not exactly at them, just in their direction. It's like Peeta said, I was shooting and they were ignoring me and I just... I just list my head, so I shot an apple out of their stupid roast pig's mouth!" he finishes defiantly. 

"What did they do?" Suki says carefully.

"Nothing. Or I don't know. I walked out after that."

"Without being dismissed?" gasps Ty Lee. 

"I dismissed myself," he says. He remembers how he promised Katara he would try to win and he feels like a ton of bricks has been dropped on his shoulders.

"Well, that's that," says Iroh, pouring himself some tea.

"Do you think they'll arrest me?" he asks, still unsure.

"Doubt it," Iroh says airily. "Be a pain to replace you at this stage."

"What about my family? Will they punish them?"

"Don't think so. Wouldn't make much sense. See, they'd have to reveal what happened in the Training Center to have any worthwhile effect, which they can't do since it's private. Most likely they'll make your life hell in the arena."

"Which they've already promised to do," adds Toph.

"Very true," Iroh says. And he realizes the impossible has happened. They have actually cheered him up. Iroh rips off a piece of pork chop and dips it in his tea, which makes Ty Lee frown. "What were their faces like?"

He can feel the beginnings of a smile on his face. "Shocked. Terrified. Um, ridiculous, some of them." An image pops into his mind. "One of them fell into the bowl of punch."

Iroh guffaws, and they all start laughing, even Ty Lee.

"I'll get a very bad score," he says.

"Scores only matter if they're very good, no one pays attention to the bad or mediocre ones," Satoru says. "For all they know, you could be hiding your talents to get a low score on purpose. People use that strategy."

"I hope that's how people interpret the four I'll probably receive," Toph says. "If that. Really, is anything less impressive that watching a blind girl throw a heavy ball and run around?"

He grins at her, then remembers she can't see it and nudges her with his foot. She nudges back, a soft smile on her face. 

After dinner, they go to the sitting room to watch the scores announced on television. First they show a photo of the tribute, then flash to their score below it. The Career Tributes naturally get in the eight-to-ten range. Most of the other players average a five. Surprisingly, little Aang comes up with a seven. He doesn't know what he showed the judges, but he's so tiny it must have been impressive. 

District 12 comes up last, as usual. Toph pulls an eight so at least a couple Gamemakers must have been watching her. He whispers her score into her ear, her long hair tickling his chin. He then digs his fingernails into his palms as his face comes up, expecting the worst. Then they're flashing the number eleven on the screen. 

Eleven!

Ty Lee lets out a squeal, and everyone is clapping him on the back and cheering and congratulating him. But it doesn't seem real.

"There must be a mistake. How... how could that happen?" he asks Iroh.

"Guess they liked your temper," he says. "They've got a show to put on. They need some players with some heat."

Suki comes over and gives him a hug. "Oh, wait until you see what I've for for you and Toph for your interviews!"

"More water?"

"Of a sort," she says mischievously.

Toph congratulates him, another awkward moment. They've both done well, but what does that mean for the other? He never thought Toph could pull such a high score with her blindness. How will she stand a chance in the arena? She is his friend. He doesn't want her to die. And yet if he is to live, she must perish.

He escapes to his room as quickly as possible and burrows down under the covers. The stress of the day, particularly the crying, has worn him out. He drifts off into a restless sleep, images of Toph floating in and out of his mind. And suddenly Ty Lee is knocking on his door, reminding him that it's another "big, big, big day!" ahead. Tomorrow night will be their televised interviews. He guesses the whole team will have their hands fill readying them for that.

He gets up and takes a quick shower, being a bit more careful about the buttons he hits, and heads down to the dining room. Toph and Iroh are not there, but Ty Lee is waiting for him.

"Eat up," she says impatiently. "We've got things to do. I'm coaching you for your interview. Toph is already with Iroh, doing content. For the first four hours, you'll be with me for presentation."

He can't imagine what Ty Lee has to teach him that will take four hours, but as soon as he finishes his meal he finds out. They go to his room and she puts him in a tight tuxedo and shiny shoes and has him practicing walking properly. When he finally conquers that, there's still sitting posture - apparently he has a tendency to duck his head - eye contact, hand gestures, and smiling. Smiling is mostly about doing more of it. Ty Lee makes him say a hundred banal phrases starting with a smile, while smiling, and ending with a smile. By lunch, his cheeks are twitching with achiness.

"Well, that's the best I can do," she says with a sigh. "Just remember, Sokka, you want the audience to like you."

"And you don't think they will?" he asks with exhaustion in his voice. 

"Not if you glare at then the whole time. Why don't you save that for the arena? Instead, think of yourself among friends!"

"They're betting on how long I live!" he spits. "They're not my friends!"

"Well, try and pretend!" Ty Lee snaps. Then she composes herself and beams at him. "See, like this. I'm smiling at you even though you're aggravating me."

"Yes, and it feels so convincing. I'm going to eat." He takes off his shoes and stomps down to the dining room. 

Toph and Iroh seem to be in pretty good moods, so he's thinking the content session should be an improvement on this morning. He couldn't be more wrong. After lunch, Iroh takes him into the sitting room, directs him to the couch, and then just frowns at him for a while. 

"What?" he finally asks.

"I'm trying to figure out what to do with you," he replies. "How we're going to present you. Are you going to be charming? Aloof? Fierce? So far, you're shining like a star. You volunteered for your sister - or tried to, anyway. Suki made you look unforgettable. You've got the top training score. People are intrigued, but no one knows who you are. The impression you make tomorrow will decide exactly what I can get you in terms of sponsors."

Having watched the tribute interviews all his life, he knows there's truth to his words. If you appeal to the crowd, either by being humorous or brutal or eccentric, you gain favor.

"What's Toph's approach?" he asks.

"Likeable. She has a sort of self-deprecating humor naturally," Iroh says. "Whereas when you open your mouth, you come off more sullen and hostile."

"I do not!"

Iroh shakes his head. "I don't know where you pulled that cheery boy on the chariot from, but I haven't seen him before or since."

"You haven't given me many reasons to be cheery," he huffs. 

"But you don't have to please me. I'm not going to be your sponsor. So pretend I'm the audience," he says. "Delight me."

"Fine!" he snarls. Iroh takes the role of interviewer and he tries to answer his questions in a winning fashion. But he can't. He's too angry with Iroh for what he said and that he even has to answer the questions. All he can think about is how unjust the whole thing is, the Hunger Games. Why is he hopping around like some trained dog, trying to please the people he hates? Why should Toph, who already has enough trouble living as it is, have to put herself in the line of danger simply because her name was drawn out of a hat? And not even that, she volunteered! Why should any of them have to do this? The longer the interview goes on, the more fury seems to rise to the surface until he's literally spitting out answers at him.

"All right, all right," he says. "We've got to find another angle. Not only are you hostile, I don't know anything about you. I've asked you fifty questions and still have no sense of your life, your family, what you care about. They want to know you, Sokka."

"But I don't want them to! They're already taking my future! They can't have the things that mattered to me in the past!"

"Then lie! Make something up!"

"I'm no good at lying!"

"Well, you better learn fast. You've got about as much charm as a dead slug," says Iroh.

Ouch. That hurts. Even Iroh must know he's been too harsh, because his voice softens. "Here's an idea. Try acting humble."

"Humble?" he echoes.

"That you can't believe a little boy from District Twelve has done this well. The whole thing's been more than you could've ever dreamed of. Talk about Suki's clothes. How nice the people are. How the city amazes you. If you won't talk about yourself, at least compliment the audience. Just keep turning it back around, all right? Gush."

The next hours are agonizing. At once it's clear he cannot gush. They try playing him cocky, but he just doesn't have the arrogance. Apparently he's too "vulnerable" for ferocity. He's not witty. Funny. Sexy. Mysterious.

By the end of the session, he is no one at all. Iroh started drinking tea somewhere around funny, and there is a nasty edge to his voice now. "I give up, son. Just answer the questions and try not to let the audience see how openly you despise them."

He has dinner that night in his room, ordering an outrageous amount of delicacies, eating himself sick, and then taking out his anger at Iroh, at Ty Lee, at the Hunger Games themselves by smashing dishes around the room. Then he collapses onto the bed, crying until his tears run dry.

In the morning, his prep hangs over him. His lessons with Ty Lee and Iroh are over. This day belongs to Suki. She's his last hope. Maybe she can make him look so wonderful, no one will care what comes out of his mouth.

The team works on him until late afternoon, turning his skin to glowing satin, stenciling patterns on his arms, painting wave designs on his twenty perfect nails. Then Venia goes to work on his hair, weaving it with streams of blue and green ribbon before tying back into its signature ponytail. They erase his face with a layer of makeup and draw his features back out. Finally, they cover his entire body in a powder that makes him shimmer in gold dust. 

Then Suki enters with what he assumes is his suit, but he can't really see it because it's covered. "Close your eyes," he orders.

He does, and for a moment he lingers on the fact that Satoru is with Toph right now, doing the exact same thing, but he did not have to say that to her. He can feel the silk inside as he slips into the pants and jacket, which are both light and heavy at the same time. There's some adjusting and fidgeting, and then he's ready. 

Suki dismisses the prep team and has him move around for a while to break in his new shoes. 

"So, all ready for the interview, then?" she asks. He can see by her expression that she's been talking to Iroh. That she knows how dreadful he is.

"I'm awful. Iroh called me a dead slug. No matter what we tried, I just couldn't do it. I just can't be one of those people he wants me to be."

Suki thinks about this a moment. "Why don't you just be yourself?"

"Myself? That's no good, either. Iroh says I'm sullen and hostile," he says. 

"Well, you are... around Iroh," says Suki with a grin. "I don't find you so. The prep team adores you. You win over the Gamemakers. And I've seen you with Toph. No one can help but admire your spirit."

His spirit. This is a new thought. It suggests he's a fighter, like Toph's father said he was. And what does she mean, she's seen him with Toph? What has she seen, exactly?

Suki takes his icy hands in his warm ones. "Suppose, when you answer the questions, you think you're addressing a friend. Who would your best friend be?" 

Immediately a name pops into his mind, and he blurts it out without even thinking about it. "Toph."

Suki looks at him through long lashes, and he can't bear the pity behind her eyes. 

"She's my friend. But I can't... I can't see her. When I'm up there."

"What about me?" Suki asks. "Could you think of me as a friend?"

He's relieved that they can get off the subject of his relationship with Toph. Of all the people he's met since he left home, Suki is his favorite. He liked her right off and she hasn't disappointed him yet. "I think so."

"I'll be sitting on the main platform with the other stylists. You'll be able to look right at me. When you're asked a question, find me, and answer it as honestly as possible," she says.

"Even if what I think is horrible?" Because it might be, really.

"Especially if what you think is horrible." Suki grins. "You'll try it?" 

He nods. It's a plan. Or at least a straw to grasp. 

Too soon it's time to go. The interviews take place on a stage constructed in front of the Training Center. Once he leaves his room, it will be only minutes until he's in front of the crowd, the cameras, all of Panem.


	8. Toph's Dress

As Suki turns the doorknob, Sokka stops her hand. "Suki..." He's completely overcome with stage fright.

"Remember, they already love you," she says gently. "Just be yourself."

They meet up with the rest of the District 12 crowd at the elevator. As soon as he lays his eyes on Toph, he knows Satoru has been hard at work.

The creature standing before him has come from another world. One where skin shimmers and eyes flash and apparently they make their clothes from jewels. Because Toph's dress, oh, Toph's dress is entirely covered in reflective precious gems, blue and green and turquoise with bits of white that accent the tips of the wave design. Her slightest movement gives the impression that she has been swept away by the sea.

She is breathtaking.

He knows his mouth is hanging open, but there's nothing he can do about it. Evidently, she can feel as much because her cheeks flush and she hisses, "What are you looking at?"

He blinks. "Oh. Um, er..." Before he can choke out some excuse, the elevator opens and all twenty four tributes are hustled to the stage and shoved into a wide arc. He'll be second to last, being the male from District 12. How he wishes he could be first to just get the whole thing over with! And to avoid looking at Toph, who he can't seem to take his eyes off of. Now he'll have to listen to how witty, funny, humble, fierce, and charming everybody else is before he goes up. Plus, the audience will start to get bored, just as the Gamemakers did.

Just stepping onto the stage makes his breathing rapid and shallow. He can feel his pulse pounding in his temples. It's a relief to get in his chair, because between his legs shaking and Toph's death grip on his arm, he's afraid he'll trip. An elevated seating unit has been set up for prestigious guests, with the stylists commanding the front row. The cameras will turn to them when the crowd is reacting to their handiwork. Television crews have claimed most of the other balconies.

Bato Flickerman, the man who has hosted the interviews for more than forty years, bounces to the stage. This year his hair is dyed powder blue with his lips and eyelids matching. It's a bit less freakish than last year when the theme was crimson and he appeared to be bleeding. He tells a few jokes to get the audience warmed up but then gets down to business.

The boy from District 1 is first. He's a skinny, scrawny-looking thing, named Jet. His counterpart, looking provocative in a see-through silver dress, steps up to the center of the stage to join Bato for her interview. You can tell her mentor didn't have any trouble coming up with an angle for her. With that flowing white hair, crystal blue eyes, tanned body - she's sexy all the way.

Each interview only lasts three minutes. Then a buzzer goes off and the next tribute is up. He will say this for Bato, he really does his best to make the tributes shine. He's friendly, tries to set the nervous ones at ease, laughs at lame jokes, and can turn a weak response into a memorable one by the way he reacts.

He sits up straight, the way Ty Lee taught him to, as the districts slip by. 2, 3, 4. Everyone seems to be playing up to some angle. The scar-faced boy from District 2 is a ruthless killing machine. The sly-eyes girl from District 5 is foxy and elusive. He spotted Suki as soon as she took her place, but her presence does not relax him. Even Toph, whose hand squeezes his for reassurance, does not put him at ease. 7, 8, 9. The wild-haired girl from 10 is very talkative. 11.

Aang, who is dressed in a gossamer suit complete with arrows lining his arms, flutters his way to Bato. A hush falls over the crowd at the sight of this magical wisp of a tribute. Bato is very sweet with him, complimenting his seven in training, an excellent score for one so small. When he asks him what her greatest strength will be in the arena, he doesn't hesitate. "I'm very hard to catch," he says in a tremulous voice. "And if they can't catch me, they can't kill me. So don't count me out."

"I wouldn't in a million years," says Bato incredibly.

The girl tribute from District 11, Yaling, has the same pale skin as Aang, but the resemblance stops there. She's skinny, but looks like she could throw up to a hundred pounds, like Toph. The Career Tributes must have noticed too, but he saw that she rejected their invitations to join their crowd, instead preferring to be on her own. Even so, she scored a ten and it's not hard to imagine she impressed the Gamemakers. She ignores Bato's attempts at banter and answers with a yes or no or just remains silent.

And then they're calling Sokka Everdeen, and he feels himself standing and making his way center stage. He shakes Bato's hand and he has the good grace not to immediately wipe his hand on his suit

"So, Sokka, the Air Temples just are quite a change from District Twelve. What's impressed you the most since you've arrived here?" he asks.

What? What did he say? It's as if the words make no sense.

His mouth has gone as dry as sawdust. He desperately finds Suki in the crowd and locks eyes with her. He imagines the words coming from his lips.

"The lamb stew," he gets out.

Bato laughs, and vaguely he realizes some of the audience has joined in.

"The one with the dried plums?" Bato asks, and he nods. "Oh, I eat it by the bucketful." He turns sideways to the audience in horror, hand on his stomach. "It doesn't show, does it?" They shout reassurances to him and applaud. This is what he means about Bato. He tries to help you out.

"Now, Sokka," he says confidentially. "When you came out in the opening ceremonies, my heart actually stopped. What did you think of that costume?"

Suki raises one eyebrow at him. Be honest. "You mean after I got over my fear of drowning in my own outfit?" he says.

Big laugh. A real one from the audience.

"Yes. Start then," says Bato.

Suki. His friend. He should tell her anyway. "I thought Suki was brilliant and it was the most gorgeous costume I'd ever seen and I couldn't believe Toph and I were wearing them."

"Yes, your partner looked quite stunning, I must say," he says. "Don't worry, folks! We'll hear from Toph Beifong in a moment. But how about that training score? E-le-ven. Give us a hint at what happened there."

He glances at the Gamemakers on the balcony and bites his lip. "Um... all I can say is, I think it was a first."

The cameras pan to the Gamemakers, who are chuckling and nodding.

"You're killing us," Bato says as if in actual pain. "Details, details!"

He addresses the balcony. I'm not supposed to talk about it, am I?"

The Gamemaker who fell in the punch bowl shouts," He's not!"

"Thank you," he says. "Sorry. My lips are sealed."

"Let's go back then, to the moment they called your sister's name at the reaping," says Bato. His mood is quieter now. "And you tried to volunteer. Can you tell us about her?"

No. No, not all of you. But maybe Suki. "Her name's Katara. She's just twelve. And I love her more than anything."

You could hear a pin drop in the crowd now.

"And after the young lady who we'll hear from in a second volunteered in your place, what did she say to you? Your sister, that is."

Be honest. Be honest. He swallows hard. "She asked me to try really hard to win."

"And what did you say?" Bato prompts gently.

When he speaks, his voice seems to drop an octave. "I swore I would."

"I bet you did," says Bato with a squeeze of his arm. The buzzer goes off. "Sorry, we're out of time. Best of luck, Sokka Everdeen, tribute from District Twelve."

The applause goes on long after he's seated. He looks to Suki for reassurance, who gives him a subtle thumbs-up.

He's still in a daze for the first part of Toph's interview, but his ears perk up when he hears Bato say, "And your dress! I mean, look at it!"

The audience oohs and ahs, and Sokka watches on the screen above him as Toph gets up, brushes herself off, and twirls in a circle. The reaction is immediate.

"Oh, do that again!" Bato gasps, and she does, lifting up the skirts and spinning around and around, letting the dress engulf her in waves. The audience breaks into cheers, and he is left gasping for breath. She is absolutely beautiful.

"Oh, my goodness, I think it's safe to say I've never seen anything quite like that," Bato says as Toph takes her seat again.

"Yeah, me neither," she replies smugly, which makes the audience wide-eyed. Bato nods like he's been expecting her to bring it up.

"Yes. Toph, you are currently making history, being the first-ever blind tribute," he says. "How do you feel about that?"

She considers this a moment, mulling it over. "I think that a lot of people have already counted me out," she says. "And I really can't blame them. But if they knew what I could do, I don't think they would."

"Well, I certainly wouldn't," Bato says. "Now, how about your home? You're the mayor's daughter, surely you must have a best friend? A boyfriend, waiting for you?"

Toph hesitates, then gives an unconvincing shake of her head.

"Pretty girl like you. There must be some special boy. Come on, what's his name?"

She sighs. "Well, there is this one boy. I've had a crush on him ever since I can remember, but I don't think he really even noticed me until the reaping. I mean, noticed me, noticed me."

Sounds of sympathy from the ground. Unrequited love, they can relate to.

"He have another girl?" Bato asks.

"I don't think so, but a lot of girls like him," she says.

"So here's what you do. You win, you go home. He can't turn you down then, can he?" he says encouragingly.

"I don't think it's going to work out. Winning... won't help in my case."

Bato looks baffled. "Why ever not?'

Toph's normally pale face has turned a bright, boiling red. "Because... because... he came here with me."


	9. The Games Begin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Four kisses now... should we make it five?

For a moment, the cameras hold Toph's downcast eyes as what she says sinks in. Then Sokka sees his own face, mouth half-open in a mix of surprise and protest, magnified on every screen he sees as he realizes, Me! She means me! He presses his lips together and starters at the floor, hoping this will conceal the emotions starting to boil up inside of him.

Bato looks even more shocked than him. "Is that why..." he trails off, but Sokka and Toph and every other person in Avatar must know what he was going to say. There can now be only one reason Toph volunteered for him.

Bato shakes his head and regains his composure. "Oh, that is a piece of bad luck." The crowd is murmuring in agreement, even giving a few agonized cries. 

"It's not good," agrees Toph.

"Well, I don't think any of us can blame you, it'd be hard not to fall for that young man," Bato says. "He didn't know?"

She shakes her head. "Not until now."

He allows his eyes to flicker up to the screen long enough to see that the blush on his cheeks is unmistakable.

"Wouldn't you love to pull him back out here and get a response?" Bato asks the audience, and the crowd screams assent. "Sadly, rules are rules, and Sokka Everdeen's time has been spent. Well, best of luck to you, Toph Beifong, and I think I speak for all of the Avatar when I say our hearts go with yours."

The roar of the crowd is deafening. Toph has absolutely wiped the rest of them off the map with her little declaration of love. When the audience finally quiets down, she chokes out a small, "Thank you," and returns to her seat next to him. They stand for the anthem. He has to raise his head out of the required respect and cannot avoid seeing that every screen is now dominated by a shot of him and Toph, mere inches away from each other. Poor tragic them.

But he knows better.

After the anthem, the tributes file back into the Training Center lobby and onto the elevators. He makes sure to veer into a car that does not contain Toph, though he notices that her hands are grasping at thin air like she's waiting for him to grab her. The crowd slows their entourages of stylists and mentors and chaperones, so they only have each other for company. No one speaks. His elevator stops to deposit four tributes before he is alone and then finds the doors opening on the twelfth floor. 

Toph has only just stepped from her car when he is in front of her, hands out, ready to hurt her. But he can't. He can't bring himself to touch her, in her beautiful dress with her beautiful eyes. Instead, he pours his feelings into his words.

"What did you do that for?"

She lifts her head up, and he realizes that he is nearly two heads taller than her. "What did I do what for?" she asks like she doesn't already know.

"You know what. Why would you go saying those things about me?" 

She cocks her head to the side, something glinting in her eyes. He finds himself being pulled in, accepting the fact that his face is getting closer and closer to hers. His eyes are closing. Her eyes are closing.

"Why do you think?" she whispers, and their lips have just barely brushed against each other when the elevators open again and the whole crew is there. Ty Lee, Iroh, Suko, and Satoru. 

"What's going on?" says Ty Lee, and they immediately jerk away. Sokka shakes his head, and Toph lowers her head again. He can't believe what he just did. 

"This was your idea, wasn't it?" he says to Iroh. 

He shrugs. "It was Toph's idea. I just helped her with it."

"You - you -" he whips around to face Toph, whose face is still toward the ground. "You made me look weak!"

"She made you look desirable!" Iroh cuts in. "And let's face it, you can use all the help you can get in that department. You were about as romantic as dirt until she said she wanted you. Now they all do. You're all they're talking about. The star-crossed lovers from District Twelve!"

"But we're not star-crossed lovers!" he says and tries to pretend he doesn't see the hurt in Toph's eyes.

Iroh grabs his shoulders. "Who cares? It's all a big show. It's all how you're perceived. The most I could say about you after your interview was that you were nice enough, although that in itself was a small miracle. Now I can say that you're a heartbreaker. Oh, oh, oh, how the girls at home fall longingly at your feet. Which do you think will get you more sponsors?"

The smell of tea on his breath makes him sick. He shoves his hands off his shoulders and steps away, trying to clear his head.

Suki comes over and puts her arm around him. "He's right, Sokka."

"Someone should have told me. So I didn't look so stupid." Why is he angry? This shouldn't bother him so much. They're right. But he shouldn't have kissed Toph. He cannot risk feelings right before she is doomed to die, quite possibly by his hands.

"No, your reaction was perfect. If you'd have known, you wouldn't have reacted as real," Satoru says.

"You didn't say you loved me," Toph says dejectedly. "What does it matter?"

The words are sinking in. The strange anger fading. Iroh is right. He survived his interview, but was he unforgettable? No. Toph certainly wasn't, in her shiny dress with her blindness to stand her out. The only amount of substance he had was when he talked about Katara. Compare that with Yaling, with her strong and silent approach, and he is nothing.

But now Toph has made him an object of love. Not just hers. To hear her tell it he has many admirers. And if the audience really thinks they're in love... he remembers his strongly they responded to her confession. Star-crossed lovers. Iroh is right, they eat this stuff up at the Air Temples. Suddenly he's worried that he didn't react properly. 

"After she said that she loved me, did you think that I could be in love with her too?" he asks.

"I did," Satoru says. "The way you avoided looking at the cameras, the blush."

The others chime in, agreeing.

"You're golden, son. You're going to have sponsors lined up around the block," says Iroh.

He's now embarrassed about his reaction. He forces himself to acknowledge Toph. "I'm sorry."

She shrugs. "It's fine."

But it's not. They both know it. 

In the silence that follows, delicious smells of their dinner waft in from the dining room. "Come on, let's eat," Iroh says. They follow him to the table and take their places, Satoru guiding Toph this time. 

After dinner, they watch the replay in the sitting room. He seems dull and boring compared to some of the other tributes. Toph actually is charming, twirling in her dress and then professing her love. And there he is, blushing and confused, made desirable by her confession, tragic by circumstances, and by all accounts, unforgettable. 

When the anthem finishes and the screen goes dark, a hush falls on the room. Tomorrow, at dawn, they will be roused and prepared for the arena. The actual Games don't start until ten because so many of the Air Temple's residents sleep late. But he and Toph must make an early start. There is no telling how far they will travel to the arena that has been prepared for this year's Games.

He knows Iroh and Ty Lee will not be going with them. As soon as they leave here, they'll be up at the Games Headquarters, hopefully madly signing up their sponsors, working out a strategy on hoe and when to deliver the gifts to them. Suki and Satoru will travel with them to the very spot from which they will be launched into the arena. Still, final goodbyes must be said here.

Ty Lee takes both of them by the hand and, with actual tears in her eyes, wishes them well. Thanks them for being the best tributes it has ever been her privilege to sponsor. And then, because it's Ty Lee and she's apparently required by law to say something awful, she adds, "I wouldn't be surprised at all if I finally get promoted to a decent District next year!"

Then she kisses them each on the cheek and hurries out, overcome with the emotional parting or the possible improvement of her fortunes.

Iroh crosses his arms and looks them both over. 

"Any final words of advice?" Toph asks.

"When the gong sounds, get out of there. You're neither of you to go to the bloodbath at the Cornucopia. Especially you, Toph," he says. "The special stick I told you about will be waiting right by your circle. When the gong goes off, you pick it up and you run in the opposite direction. Got it?"

"Got it," she nods.

"And after that?" Sokka prompts.

"Stay alive," Iroh says. It's the same advice he gave them on the train, only he's not filled up with tea. And they only nod. What else is there to say?

When he heads to his room, Toph lingers to talk to Satoru. He's glad. Whatever happened in that hallway, whatever strange mix of words they can produce as a goodbye, they can wait until tomorrow. 

He takes a shower, rubbing the blue paint, the makeup, and the scent of beauty from his body. All that remains of the design team's efforts are the waves on his nails. He decides to keep them as a reminder of who he is to the audience. And to somehow link him to Toph, who he knows has the same polish on her nails.

He pulls on a thick, fleecy pair of night shorts and climbs into bed. It takes him about five seconds to realize that he'll never fall asleep. And he needs sleep desperately because in the arena every moment he gives in to fatigue will be an invitation to death. 

It's no good. One hour, two, three pass, and his eyelids refuse to get heavy. He can't stop trying to imagine exactly what terrain he'll be thrown into. Desert? Swamp? A frigid wasteland? And above all, how the hell will Toph make it out alive? She better use that damn stick Iroh made for her. 

He is at least hoping for trees, which may afford him some means of concealment and food and shelter. Often there are trees because barren landscapes are dull and the Games resolve too quickly without them. But what will the climate be like? What traps have the Gamemakers hidden to liven up the slower moments? And then there are his fellow tributes...

The more anxious he is to find sleep, the more it eludes him. Finally, he is too restless to even stay in bed. He paces the floor, heart beating too fast, breathing too short. If he doesn't get air soon, he'll go crazy. He runs down the hall to the door to the roof. It's not only unlocked but ajar. Perhaps someone forgot to close it, but it doesn't matter. The energy field enclosing the roof prevents any desperate form of escape. And he's not looking to escape, only to fill his lungs with air. He wants to see the sky and the moon on the last night that no one will be hunting him.

The roof is not lit at night, but as soon as his bare feet reach its tiled surface he sees her silhouette black against the lights that shine endlessly in the Air Temples. There's quite a commotion going down in the streets, music and singing and car horns, none of which he could hear through the thick glass panels that make up the windows in his room. He could slip away now, without her noticing him; she wouldn't be able to hear him over the din. But the night air's so sweet, he can't bear returning to that stuffy cage of a room. And what difference does it make? Whether they speak or not?

His feet move soundlessly across the tiles, and yet somehow she hears him. 

"What are you doing, Sokka?"

He stops short. "You should be getting some sleep," he says.

Toph starts but doesn't turn. He can see her give her head a slight shake. "I didn't want to miss the party. It's for us, after all."

He comes up beside her and leans over the edge of the rail. The wide streets are full of dancing people. He squints to make out their tiny figures. "Are they in costumes?"

"How should I know?" she says.

"Oh. Right," he mumbles. If only he could remember, just once. Then again, maybe it would be better to forget her blindness. How there's no way she'll make it past the first day. How he might be the one to have to kill her. And he knows he cannot.

"Couldn't sleep, either?" she says.

"Couldn't turn my mind off."

"Thinking about your family?"

"No," he admits a bit guiltily. "All I can do is wonder about tomorrow. Which is pointless, of course." In the light from below, he can see her face now, pale and soft, her eyes closed, letting the wind blow her hair. 

"I'm going to die tomorrow," she says.

"That's no way to be thinking," he says. Even if it's the way he's been thinking.

"Why not? It's true. My best hope is to grab that stick and hope there's trees for me to survey the land."

They're quiet for a few moments, taking in the meaning of her words. 

"Are you going to kill anyone?" he asks.

"Yes. If I get the chance, I'll have to. I can't go down without a fight."

He nods. "That's very... noble of you. If you want to die that way, fine. I want to live."

"You think I don't?" Her voice is pleading now. She needs him to understand. "I want to go home. I want to live, just like you. But I can't pretend that I'm going to when we both know that I won't."

"Toph..."

"Goodnight, Sokka." She stands up and feels for where he is, her hands brushing against his chest. She stands on her tiptoes, kisses his cheek, and then she's gone. He reaches up to touch the place where her lips left a mark. That's the fourth time they've kissed now, counting after the parade and so long ago, in the Justice Building on the day of the reaping.

He spends the rest of the night tossing and turning in his bed, wearing for the dull sunlight that means it is his death day. He doesn't see Toph in the morning. Suki comes to him before dawn, giving him a simple shift to wear and guides him to the roof. His final dressing and preparations will be done in the catacombs under the arena itself. A hovercraft appears out of thin air and a ladder drops down. He places his hands and feet on the lower rungs and instantly it's as if he's frozen. Some sort of current glues him to the ladder while he's lifted safely inside.

He expects the ladder to release him then, but he's still stuck when a woman in a white coat approaches him carrying a syringe. "This is just your tracker, Sokka. The Stiller you are, the more efficiently I can place it," she says. 

Still? He's a statue. But that doesn't prevent him from feeling the sharp stab of pain as the needle inserts thr metal tracking device deep under his skin. Now the Gamemakers will always be able to trace his whereabouts in the arena. Wouldn't want to lose a tribute.

As soon as the tracker's in place, the ladder releases him. The woman disappears and Suki is retrieved from the roof. She leads him to a room where breakfast has been laid out. Despite the tension in his stomach, he eats as much as he can. He's so nervous he might as well be eating coal dust. The one thing that distracts me is the view from the windows as they sail over the city and then to the wilderness beyond. This is what birds see. Only they're free and safe.

The ride lasts about half an hour before the windows black out, suggesting that they're nearing the arena. The hovercraft lands and he and Suki go back to the ladder, only this time it leads down into a tube underground, into the catacombs that lie beneath the arena. They follow instructions to his destination, a chamber for his preparation. In the Air Temples, they call it the Launch Room. 

He struggles to keep his breakfast as he showers and brushes his teeth. Suki ties his hair back into its ponytail. Then the clothes arrive, the same for every tribute. Suki had no say in his outfit, does not know what lies in the package, but she helps him dress in the undergarments; simple tawny pants, light green blouse, sturdy brown belt, and thin, hooded black jacket that falls to his thighs. 

"The material in the jacket's designed to reflect body heat. Expect some cool nights," Suki says.

The boots, worn over skintight socks, are better than he could've hoped for. Soft leather not unlike his ones at home. Good for running.

He thinks he's finished when Suki pulls the black bracelet from her pocket. He had completely forgotten about it.

"Where did you get that?" he asks.

"In your room on the train," she says. "It's your District token, isn't it?" He nods and she fastens it on his wrist. "There, you're all set. Move around. Make sure everything feels comfortable."

He walks, runs in a circle, and swings his arms about. "Yes, it's fine. Fits perfectly."

"Then there's nothing to do but wait for the call," says Suki.

Nervousness seeps into terror as he anticipates what is to come. He could be dead in an hour. Worse, Toph could be dead in an hour. Will be dead in an hour. He'll never see her again. 

"Do you want to talk, Sokka?" Suki asks.

He shakes his head but after a moment holds out his hand to her. Suki encloses it in both of hers. And this is how they sit until a pleasant female voice announces it's time to prepare for launch.

Still clenching one of Suki's hands, he walks over to stand on the circular metal plate. "Remember what Iroh said. Run, find water. The rest will follow." He nods. "And remember this. I'm not allowed to bet, but if I could, my money would be on you."

"Truly?" he whispers.

"Truly," she whispers back. She leans down and kisses his forehead. "Good luck, Sokka." And then a glass cylinder is lowering around him breaking their handhold, cutting her off from him. She taps her fingers under her chin. Head high. 

He lifts his chin and stands as straight as he can. The cylinder begins to rise. For maybe fifteen seconds, he's in darkness and then he can feel the metal plate pushing him out of the cylinder, into the open air. For a moment, his eyes are dazzled by the bright sunlight and he's conscious only of a strong wind and the hopeful smell of pines.

Then he hears the legendary announcer, Zhao Templesmith, as his voice booms all around him.

"Ladies and gentlemen, let the Seventy-fourth Hunger Games begin!"


	10. Eleven Dead

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'M WHIPPING THROUGH THESE SO FAST I'M SO PROUD OF MYSELF

Sixty seconds. That's how long they're required to stand on their metal circles before the sound of a gong releases them. Step off before the minute is up, and landmines blow your legs off. Sixty seconds to take in the ring of tributes all equidistant from the Cornucopia, a giant golden horn shaped like a cone with a curved tail, the mouth of which is at least twenty feet high, spilling over with the things that will give them life here in the arena. Food, containers of water, weapons, medicine, garments, fire starters. Strewn around the Cornucopia are other supplies, their value decreasing the farther they are from the horn.

For instance, only a few steps from his feet lies a three-foot square of plastic. Certainly it could be of some use in a downpour. But there in the mouth, he can see a tent pack that would protect from almost any sort of weather. If he had the guts to go in and fight for it against the other twenty three tributes. Which he has been instructed not to do.

But it's tempting, so tempting, when he sees the bounty waiting there before him. And he knows that if he doesn't get it, someone else will. That the Career Tributes who survive the bloodbath will divide up most of these life-sustaining spoils. Something catches his eye. There, creating on a mound of blanket mounds, is a silver sheath of arrows and a bow, already string, just waiting to be engaged. 

That's mine, he thinks. It's meant for me. 

But he will most likely be the only target. How many of the tributes can possibly know how to shoot a bow? Surely the Careers will snatch it up before he can get his hands on it. 

To distract himself, his eyes scan the ring for her, searching for her dark hair and green eyes. There, about five tributes to his right. Sure enough, almost directly in front of her circle lies a metal stick, about three feet long. He can just make out designs curling the edges, and wonders what dangers that thing can do. He doesn't want to find out, but for the life of him, he hopes Toph does.

And he's missed it! He's missed his chance! His feet shuffle for a moment, confused about the direction his brain wants them to take and then he linges forward, scooping up the sheet of plastic and a loaf of bread. The pickings are small and he's angry with Toph for distracting, even though he knows she did nothing. He sprints twenty yards to retrieve a bright orange backpack that could hold anything because he can't stand leaving with virtually nothing. 

A girl, he thinks from District 9, reaches the pack at the same time at the same time he does and for a brief time they grapple for it and then she coughs, splattering his face with blood. He staggers back, repulsed by the warm, sticky spray. Then the girl slips to the ground. That's when he sees the knife in her back. Already other tributes have reached the Cornucopia and are spreading out to attack. Yes, the girl from District 2, ten yards away, one hand clutching a half-dozen knives. He's seen her throw in training. She never misses. And he's her next target. 

All the general fear he's been feeling condenses into an immediate fear of this girl, this predator, who might kill him in seconds. Adrenaline shoots through him and he slings the pack over one shoulder and runs full-speed for the woods. He can hear the blade whistling toward him and reflexively hike the pack up to protect his head. The blade lodges in the back. Both straps on his shoulders now, he makes for the trees. Somehow he knows the girl will not pursue him. That she'll be drawn back into the Cornucopia before all the good stuff is gone.

A grin crosses his face. Thanks for the knife, he thinks.

At the edge of the woods he turns for one instant to survey the field. About a dozen or so tributes are hacking away at each other at the horn. Several lie dead already on the ground, and he is relieved to find that none of them have black hair. Those who have taken flight are disappearing into the trees or into the void opposite hin. He continues running until the woods have hidden him from the other tributes then slows into a steady jog that he thinks he maintains for a while. For the next few hours, he alternates between jogging and walking, putting as much distance as he can between himself and his competitors. 

He lost his bread during the struggle with the girl from District 9 but managed to stuff his plastic in his sleeve so as he walks he folds it neatly and tuck it into a pocket. He also frees the knife - it's a fine one with a long, sharp blade, serrated near the handle, which will make it handy for sawing through things - and slides it into his belt. He doesn't dare stop to examine the contents of the pack yet. He just keeps moving, pausing only to check for pursuers.

He can go a long time. He knows that from his days in the woods. But he still needs water, so he keeps a sharp eye out for any sign of it. No luck.

The woods begin to evolve, and the pines are intermixed with a variety of trees, some he doesn't recognize. At one point he hears a noise and pulls his knife, thinking he may have to defend himself, but he's only startled a rabbit. "Good to see you," he whispers. If there's one rabbit, there could be hundreds just waiting to be snared.

The ground slopes down. He doesn't particularly like this, as valleys make him feel trapped, but he can't help feeling relieved for Toph's sake. When the land is flat, she'll be able to run. 

Funny, though, he doesn't feel too bad. The days of gorging himself have paid off. He's got staying power even though he's low on sleep. Being in the woods is rejuvenating. He's glad for the solitude, even though it's only an illusion, because he's probably on screen right now. Not consistently but on and off. There are so many deaths on the first day that a tribute trekking through the woods isn't much to look at. But they'll show him enough to let people know he's alive, uninjured and on the move. One of the heaviest days of betting is the opening, when the initial casualties come in. But that can't compare to what happens as the field shrinks to a handful of players.

It's late afternoon when he begins to hear the cannons. Each shot represents a dead tribute. The fighting must have finally stopped at the Cornucopia. They never collect the bloodbath bodies until the killers have dispersed. On the opening day, they don't even fire the cannons until the initial fighting is over because it's too hard to keep track of the fatalities. He allows himself to pause, panting, as he counts the shots. One... two... three... on and on until they reach eleven. Eleven dead in all. Thirteen left to play. His fingernails scrape at the dried blood the girl from District 9 coughed into his face. She's gone, certainly. He wonders about Toph. Has she lasted through the day? He'll know in a few hours. When they project the dead's images into the sky for the rest of them to see.

All of a sudden, he's overwhelmed by the thought that Toph may be lost, bled white, collected, and in the process of being transported back to the Air Temples to be cleaned up, redressed, and shipped in a simple wooden box back to District 12. No longer here. Heading home. He tries to remember if he saw her once the action started. But the last image he can conjure up is Toph stating determinedly ahead as the gong rang out.

Maybe it's better, if she's gone already. She had no confidence she could win. And yet... he reaches up and touches his cheek, thinking of their kisses. 

He slumps down next to his pack, exhausted. He needs to go through it anyway before night falls. See what he has to work with. As he unhooked the straps, he can feel its sturdily made although a rather unfortunate color. This orange will practically glow in the dark. He makes a note to mentally camouflage it first thing tomorrow.

He flips open the flap. What he wants most, right at this moment, is water. He won't last long without it. For a few days, he'll be able to function with unpleasant symptoms of dehydration, but after that he'll deteriorate into helplessness and be dead in a week, toos. He carefully lays out the provisions.

A thin sleeping back that reflects body heat. A pack of crackers. A pack of dried beef strips. A bottle of iodine. A box of wooden matches. A small coil of wire. A pair of sunglasses. And a half-gallon plastic bottle with a cap for carrying water that's bone-dry. 

No water. How hard would it have been for them to fill up the bottle? He becomes aware of the dryness in his throat and mouth, the cracks in his lips. He's been moving all day long. It's been hot and he's sweating a lot. He does this at home, but there are always streams to drink from, or snow to meet if it should come to it. 

As he refills his pack he has an awful thought. The lake. The one he saw while waiting for the gong to sound. What if that's the only source of water in the arena? That way they'll guarantee drawing them in for a fight. The lake is a full day's journey from where he sits now, a full day's journey without water. And then, even if he reaches it, the Careers will surely be guarding it. He's about to panic when he remembers the rabbit he startles earlier. It has to drink, too. He just has to find out where.

Twilight is closing in and he is ill at ease. The trees are too thin to offer much concealment. The layer of pine needles that muffles his footsteps also makes tracking animals safer when he needs their trails to find water. And he's still heading downhill, deeper and deeper into a valley that seems endless.

He's hungry, too, but he doesn't dare break into his precious store of crackers and beef yet. Instead he takes his knife and go to work on a pine tree, cutting away the outer bark and scraping off a handful of the softer inner bark. He slowly chews the stuff as he walks along. After a week of the finest food in the world, it's a little hard to choke down. But he's eaten plenty of pine in his life. He'll adjust quickly. 

In another hour, it's close he's got to find a place to camp. Night creatures are coming out. Before settling down, he takes his wire and sets teo snares in the brush. He knows it's risky to be setting traps, but food will go so fast out here. And he can't set snares on the run. Still, he walks another five minutes before making camp.

He picks his tree carefully. A willow, not terribly tall but set in a clump of other willows, offering concealment in those long, flowing tresses. He climbs up, sticking to the stronger branches close to the trunk, and finds a study fork for his bed. It takes some doing, but he arranges the sleeping bag in a relatively comfortable manner. He places his backpack in the foot of the bag, then slides in after it. As a precaution, he also belts himself to the tree, looping it around and fastening it to his waist. As night falls the air is cooling quickly. Despite the risk he took in getting the backpacks he knows now it was the right choice. This sleeping bag will be invaluable. He's sure there are several other tributes whose biggest concern right now is how to stay warm whereas he might actually get a few hours of sleep. If only he wasn't so thirsty...

Night has just come when he hears the anthem that precedes the death recap. Through the branches he can see the seal of the Air Temples, which appears to be floating in the sky. Another screen, no doubt being projected by a hovercraft. He takes a breath as the faces of the eleven dead tributes begin and tick them off one by one on his fingers.

The first to appear is the girl from 3. That means that the Career Tributes from 1 and 2 have all made it. No surprise there. Then the boy from 4. He didn't expect that, usually all the Careers make it through the first day. The boy from District 5... he guesses the sly-faced girl made it. Both tributes from 6 and 7. The boy from 8. Both from 9. Yes, there's the girl who he fought for the backpack. He's run through his fingers, only one dead tribute to go. Is it Toph? No, there's the boy from District 10. That's it. The Air Temple seal is back with a final musical flourish. Then darkness and the sounds of the forest resume. 

He can breathe more easily now. Toph is alive. 

Eleven dead, but none from District 12. He tries to work out who is left. Five Career tributes. Sly face. Yaling and Aang. Aang... so he made it through the first day after all. The thought makes Sokka glad. The girl from 8, the girl from 10, and the boy from 3. Now that he's figured them out, he must try to rest. He hasn't really slept in two days, so sleep finds him easily.

Snap! The sound of a breaking branch wakes him up. How long has he been asleep? Four hours? Five? The tip of his nose is ice cold. Snap! Snap! What's going on? This is not the sound of a branch breaking under someone's foot but the sharp crack of one coming from a tree. Snap! Snap! He judges it to be several hundred yards to his right. Slowly, noiselessly, he turns himself in that direction. For a few minutes there's nothing but blackness and some scuffling. Then he sees a spark and a small fire begins to bloom. A pair of hands warms over the flames, but he can't make out more than that. 

He has to bite his lip to keep from screaming every foul name he knows at the fire starter. What are they thinking? A fire lit just at nightfall would have been one thing. Those who battled at the Cornucopia couldn't possibly have been close enough to see the flames then. But now, when they're probably combing the roofs for hours looking for victims - that's completely different.

And here he is, a stone's throw from the biggest idiot in the Games. Strapped in a tree. Not daring to flee since his general location has just been broadcast to any killer who cares. 

He lies smoldering in his hag for the next couple of hours, thinking that if he can get out of this tree, he won't have the least problem taking out his new neighbor. Obviously this person is a hazard. Stupid people are dangerous. And this one probably doesn't have much in the way of weapons when he's got this excellent knife.

The sky is still dark, but he can feel the first signs of dawn approaching. He's beginning to think that they - meaning the person who's death he's now devising and him - might have actually gone unnoticed. Then he hears it. Several pairs of feet breaking into a run. The fire starter must have dozed off. They're on her before she can escape. He can tell it's a girl now, by the pleading and the agonized scream that follows. Then there's laughter and congratulations from several voices. Someone cries out, "Twelve down and eleven to go!" which gets a round of appreciative hoots.

So they're fighting in a pack. He's not really surprised. Often alliances are formed in the early stages of the Games. He doesn't have to wonder too hard who in particular is celebrating below him. It'll be the remaining Careers from Districts 1, 2, and 4. Two boys, three girls.

He can hear them checking the girl for supplies. He can tell by their comments that they've found nothing good. He wonders if the victim is Toph but quickly dismisses the thought. She's much too bright to be building a fire like that. 

"Better clear out so they can get the body before it starts stinking." He's almost certain that's the scarred boy from District 2. There are murmurs of assent and then, to his horror, they start heading toward him. They do not know he's in here. How could they? And he's well concealed in the clump of trees. At least while the sun stays down. Then his black sleeping bag will turn from camouflage to toribkr. If they just keep moving, they will pass him and be gone in a minute.

But the Careers stop in the clearing about ten yards from his tree. They have flashlights, touches. He can see an arm here, a boot there, through the breaks in the branches. Have they spotted him? No, not yet. From their words he can tell their minds are elsewhere.

"Shouldn't we have heard a cannon by now?"

"I'd say yes. Nothing to prevent them from going in immediately."

"Unless she isn't dead."

"She's dead. I stuck her myself."

"Then where's the cannon?"

"Someone should go back. Make sure the job's done.",

"Yeah, we don't want to have to track her down twice."

"I said she's dead!"

An argument breaks out until one tribute silences the others. "We're wasting time! I'll go finish her and let's move on!"

Sokka almost falls out of the tree. The voice belongs to Toph.


	11. Pond Lilies and Iodine

Thank goodness he had the foresight to belt himself in. He's rolled sideways off the fork, and he's facing the ground, held in place by the belt, his feet straddling the pack inside the sleeping pack, braced against the trunk. There must have been some rustling when he tipped sideways, but the Careers have been too caught up in their own argument to catch it. 

"Go on then, Lover Girl," says the boy from District 2. "See for yourself. Oh, wait."

They all laugh, and Sokka just catches a glimpse of Toph, her face illuminated by a torch. Her left eye is sporting some black and blue, and her legs have some thin scratches, but other than that she looks okay. He sighs in relief before he remembers that she is a traitor. 

How can she do this? This... this teaming up with the Career wolf pack to hunt down the rest of them. No one from District 12 would think of doing such a thing! Career tributes are overly vicious, arrogant, and better fed, but only because they're the Air Temples' lapdogs. Universally, solidly hated by all but those from their own districts. He can only imagine the things that they're saying about Toph at home. 

Obviously the noble girl on the rooftop was playing just another game with him. And he had kissed her! Even though he knows her lipstick mark is long gone, he angrily wipes his cheek. He wants to pray for her death. He wants to want her to die. But he cannot bring himself to wish that on her.

The Career Tributes are silent until she is out of earshot, then use hushed voices. 

"Why don't we just kill her now and get it over with?"

"Let her tag along. What's the harm? And she's handy with that stick. Did you see the way she took out Lee?"

Sokka racks his brains. Lee. The boy from District 4. The Career tribute, dead on the first day. Did Toph...? Suddenly he knows why she is still alive. Something really must be special about that stick, if Toph could take out a Career. She'd killed him - probably injured some of the others as well - and instead of killing her, they made an alliance. Toph probably took the chance. And could he really blame her for trying to stay alive?

Taking out someone from District 4 is no small feat. His anger slowly dissipates, but now he is left with emptiness. How is he supposed to feel about Toph now?

"Besides, she's our best chance of finding him."

It takes him a moment to realize that the "him" they're referring to is him.

"Why? You think he bought into that sappy romance stuff?"

Again he thinks of their kiss in the hallway and feels his face flush.

"He might have. Seemed pretty simple-minded to me. Every time I think about that parade costume I want to puke."

"Wish we knew how she got that eleven."

"Bet you Lover Girl knows."

The sound of Toph returning silences them. 

"Was she dead?" Scarface asks.

"No. But she is now," says Toph. Just then, the cannon fires. "Ready to move on?"

The Career pack sets off at a run just as dawn begins to break and birdsong fills the air. He remains in his awkward position, muscles trembling with exertion for a while longer, then hoists himself back onto his branch. He needs to get down, to get going, but for a moment he lies there, digesting what he's heard. Not only is Toph with the Careers, but they're tracking him down. Is she helping them? Or is she leading them away? Who knows? How would Toph even know? The simpleminded boy who has to be taken seriously because of his eleven. Because she can use a bow and arrow.  
Which Toph knows better than anyone.

But she hasn't told them yet. Is she saving that information? Is she pretending to love him for the audience? What is going on inside her head?

Suddenly the birds fall silent. Then one gives a high-pitched warning call. A single note. High above the dying campfire, a hovercraft materializes, and a large set of metal teeth drops down to pick up the dead tribute girl. Then it vanishes. The birds resume their song.

"Move," he whispers to himself. He wriggles out of his sleeping bag, rolls it up, and places it in the pack. He takes a deep breath. While he's been concealed in darkness and the sleeping bag and willow branches, it has probably been difficult for the cameras to get a good look at him. He knows they must be tracking him now though. The minute he hits the ground, he's a guaranteed close-up.

The audience will have been beside themselves, knowing he was in the tree, that he overheard the Careers talking, that he discovered Toph was with them. Until he works out exactly how to play that, he'd better at least act on top of things. Not perplexed. Certainly not confused or frightened. But definitely not smug. No one need know that he knows why Toph is hanging around with them.

He slides out of the foliage and into the dawn light, he pauses a second, giving the cameras time to lock on hin. Then he cocks his head slightly to the side and gives them a knowing smile. There. Let them figure out what that means.

He's about to take off when he thinks of his snares. Maybe it's imprudent to check them with the others so close but he has to. Too many years of hunting, he guesses. And the lure of possible meat. He's rewarded with one fine rabbit. In no time, he's cleaned and gutted the animal, leaving the head, feet, tail, skin, and innards under a pile of leaves. He's wishing for a fire when he thinks of the dead tribute. He rushes to her camp, and sure enough the coals of her dying fire are still hot. He cuts the rabbit up, fashions a spit out of branches, and sets it over the coals.

He's glad for the cameras now. He wants sponsors to see that he can hunt, that he's a good bet because he won't be lured into traps as easily as the others will by hunger. While the rabbit cooks, he grinds up part of a charred branch and sets about camouflaging his orange backpack. The black tones it down, but he feels a layer of mud would definitely help. Of course, to have mud, he'd need water...

He pulls on his gear, grabs his spit, kicks some dirt over the coals, and takes off in the opposite direction the Careers went. He eats half the rabbit as he goes, then wraps up the leftovers in his plastic for later. The meat stops the grumbling in his stomach but does little to quench his thirst. Water is his top priority now.

As he hikes along, he feels certain he's still holding the screen in the Air Temples, so he's careful to continue to hide his emotions. But what a good time Zhao Templesmith must be having with his guest commentators, dissecting Toph's behavior, his reaction. What to make of it all? How does this affect the betting odds? Will they lose sponsors? Did they even have sponsors? Yes, he feels certain they do, or at least did. 

Certainly Toph has thrown a wrench into their star-crossed lover dynamic. Or has she? What story has she concocted about killing Lee? Maybe, since she hasn't spoken much about him, they can still get some mileage out of it. Maybe people will think it's something they plotted together if he acts amused now.

The sun rises in the sky and even through the canopy it seems overly bright. He coats his lips in some grease from the rabbit and tries to keep from panting, but it's no use. It's only been a day and a half and he's dehydrating fast. He tries to think of everything he knows about finding water. It runs downhill so, in fact, continuing down into this valley isn't a bad thing. If he could just locate a game trail or spot a particularly green patch of vegetation, these might help me along. But nothing seems to change. There's just the slightest gradual slope.

As the day wears on, he knows he's headed for trouble. What little urine he's urine he's been able to pass is a dark brown, his head is aching, and there's a dry patch on his tongue that refuses to moisten. The sun hurts his eyes so he digs his sunglasses out, but when he puts them on they do something funny to his vision. He stuffs then back in his pack. 

It's late afternoon when he thinks he's found help. He spots a cluster of berry bushes and hurry to strip the fruit, to suck the sweet juices from their skins. But just as he's holding them to his lips he gets a hard look at them. What he thought were blueberries are actually bloodred on the inside and have a slightly different shape. He doesn't recognize them. Perhaps they are edible, but he's guessing this is some evil trick on the Gamemakers' part. Even the plant instructor in the Training Center made a point to warn them not to eat any berries unless they were absolutely positive they weren't talking. Something he already knew, but he's so thirsty it takes her reminder to give him the strength to fling them away.

Fatigue is beginning to settle on him, but it's not the usual tiredness that follows a long hike. He has to stop and rest frequently, although he knows the only cure for what ails him requires him to continue searching. He tries a new tactic - climbing as far up as he dares in his shaky state - to look for any signs of water. But as far as he can see in any direction, there's the same unrelenting stretch of forest. 

Determined to go on until nightfall, he walks until he's stumbling over his own feet. He hauls himself into a tree and belts himself in. He has no appetite, but he sucks on a rabbit bone just to give his mouth something to do. Night falls, the anthem plays, and high in the sky he sees the picture of the girl, who was apparently from District 8. The one Toph went back to finish off.

His fear of the Career pack is minor now compared to his burning thirst. Besides, they were heading away from him and by now they too will have to rest. With the scarcity of water, they may even have to return to the lake.

Maybe that is the only course for him as well.

Morning brings distress. His head throbs with every beat of his heart simple movements send stabs of pain through his joints. He falls, rather than jumps from the tree. It takes several minutes for him to assemble his gear. Somewhere inside him, he knows this is wrong. He should be acting with more caution, moving with more urgency. But his mind seems foggy and forming a plan is hard. He leans back against the trunk of his tree, one finger gingerly stringed the sandpaper surface of his tongue, as he assesses his options. How can he get water?

Return to the lake? No good. He'd never make it.

Hope for rain? There's not a cloud in the sky.

Keep looking? Yes, this is his only chance. But then, another thought hits him, and the surge of anger that follows brings him to his senses. 

Iroh! He could send him water! Press a button and have it delivered to him in a silver parachute in minutes. He knows he must have sponsors, at least one or two who could afford a pint of liquid for him. Yes, it's pricey, but these people are made of money. And they'll be betting on him as well. Perhaps Iroh doesn't realize how deep his need is.

He says in a voice as loud as he dares, "Water." He waits, hopefully, for a parachute to descend from the sky. But nothing is forthcoming. 

Something is wrong. Is he deluded about having sponsors? Or has Toph's behavior confused them and spurned them away? No, he doesn't believe it. There's someone out there who wants to buy him water only Iroh is refusing to let it go through. As his mentor, he gets to control the flow of gifts from the sponsors. He knows he doesn't particularly like him. He's made that clear enough. But enough to let him die? From this? He can't do that, can he? If a mentor mistreats his tributes, he will be held accountable by the viewers, by the people back home in District 12. They will scorn him, and then where will he buy his tea? Iroh can't risk that. 

He buries his face in his hands. There's no danger of tears now, he couldn't produce one to save his life. What is Iroh doing? Despite his anger, hatred, and suspicions, a small voice in the back of his head whispers an answer. 

Maybe he's sending you a message, it says. A message. Saying what? Then he knows. There's only one good reason Iroh could be withholding water from him. Because he knows he's almost found it. 

He grits his teeth and pulls himself to his feet. His backpack seems to have tripled in wait. He finds a broken branch that will do for a walking stick and starts off. The sun's beating down, even more searing than the first two days, and he feels like an old piece of leather, dry and cracked. Every step is an effort, but he refuses to stop. He refuses to sit down. If he sits, there's a good chance he won't get up again, that he won't even remember his task.

What easy prey he is! Anyone, even little Aang, could take him right now, merely shove him over and kill him with his own knife, and he'd have little strength to resist. But if anyone is in his little part of the woods, they ignore him. The truth is he feels a million miles from another living soul.

Not alone, though. No, surely they've got a camera tracking hin now. He thinks back to the years of watching tributes starve, freeze, bleed, and dehydrate to death. Unless there's a really good fight going on somewhere, he's being featured. 

His thoughts turn to Katara. It's likely she won't be watching him live, but they'll show updates at school during lunch. For her sake, he tries to look as least desperate as he can. 

By the afternoon, he knows the end is coming. His legs are shaking and his heart is too quick. He keeps forgetting exactly what he is doing. He's stumbled repeatedly and managed to regain his feet, but when the stick slides out from under him, he finally tumbles to the ground and does not get up. He lets his eyes close.

He has misjudged Iroh. He has no intention of helping him at all.

This is all right, he thinks. This is not so bad here. The air is less hot, signifying evening's approach. There's a slight, sweet scent that reminds him of lilies. His fingers stroke the ground, sliding easily across the top. This is an okay place to die.

His fingertips make small swirling patterns in the cool, slippery earth. I love mud, he thinks. How many times he's tracked game with the help of its soft, readable surface. Good for bee stings, too. Mud. Mud. Mud! His eyes fly open and he digs his fingers into the earth. It is mud! His nose lifts into the air. And those are lilies! Pond lilies! 

He crawls through the mud, dragging himself toward the scent. Five yards from where he fell, he crawls through a tangle of plants into a pond. Floating on the top, yellow flowers in bloom, are his beautiful lilies.

It's all he can do not to plunge his face into the water and gulp down as much as he can hold. But he has just enough sense left to abstain. With trembling hands, he gets out his flask and fills it with water. He adds what he remembers to be the right number of drops of iodine for purifying it. The half an hour of waiting is agony, but he does it. At least, he thinks it's half an hour, but it's certainly as long as he can stand.

Slowly, easy now, he tells himself. He takes one swallow and makes himself wait. Then another. Over the next couple of hours, he drinks the entire half gallon. Then a second he prepares another before he retires to a tree where he continues sipping, eating rabbit, and even indulge in one of his previous crackers. By the time the anthem plays, he feels remarkably better. There are no faces tonight, no tributes died today. Tomorrow he'll stay here, resting, camouflaging his backpack with mud, catching some of those little fish he saw as he sipped, digging up the roots of the pond lilies to make a nice meal. He snuggles down in his sleeping back, hanging onto his water bottle for dear life. Which, of course, it is.

A few hours later, the stampede of feet shakes him from slumber. He looms around in bewilderment. It's not yet dawn, but his stinging eyes can see it.

It would be hard to miss the wall of fire descending on him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HA another cliffhanger. Sorry not sorry.


	12. The Fire

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I lost the first 2000 words of this earlier and I was freaking DEVASTATED but I got it back so I'm good now lol

His first impulse is to scramble from the tree, but he's belted in. Somehow his fumbling fingers release the buckle and he falls to the ground in a heap, still snarled in his sleeping bag. There's no time for any kind of packing. Fortunately, his backpack and water bottle are already in the bag. He shoves in the belt, hoists the bag over his shoulder, and flees.

The world has transformed to flame and smoke. Buying branches crack from trees and fall in showers of sparks at his feet. All he can do is follow the others, the rabbits and deer, and he even spots a wild dog pack shooting through the woods. He trusts their sense of direction because their instincts are sharper than his. But they are much faster, flying through the underbrush so gracefully as his boots catch on roofs and fallen tree limbs, that there is no way he can keep up with them.

The heat is horrible, but worse than the heat is the smoke, which threatens to suffocate him at any moment. He pulls the top of his shirt up over his nose, grateful to find it soaked in sweat, and it offers a thin veil of protection. And he runs, choking, his bag banging against his back, his face cut with branches that materialize from the gray haze without warning, because he knows he's supposed to run.

This was no tribute's campfire gone out of control, no accidental occurrence. The flames that beat down on him have an unnatural height, a uniformity that marks them as human-made, machine-made, Gamemaker-made. Things have been too quiet today. No deaths, perhaps no fights today at all. The audience in the Air Temples will be getting bored, claiming that these Games are verging on dullness. This is the one thing the Game must not do.

It's not hard to follow the Gamemakers' motivation. There is the Career pack and then there are the rest of them, probably spread far and thin across the arena. This fire is designed to flush them out, to drive them together. It may not be the most original device he's ever seen, but it's very, very effective. 

He hurdles over a burning log. Not high enough. The tail end of his jacket catches on fire and he has to stop to rip it from his body and stamp out the flames. But he doesn't dare leave the jacket, scorched and smoldering as it is. He takes the risk of shoving it into his sleeping bag, hoping the lack of air will quell what he hasn't extinguished. This is all he has, what he carries on his back, and it's little enough to survive with.

In a matter of minutes, his throat and nose and burning. The coughing begins soon after and his lungs begin to feel as if they are actually being cooked. Discomfort turns to distress until each breath sends a searing pain through his chest. He manages to take cancer under a stone outcropping just as the vomiting begins, and he loses his meager supper and whatever water has remained in his stomach. Crouching on his hands and knees, he retches until there's nothing left to come up. 

He knows he needs to get moving, but he's trembling and lightheaded now, gasping for air. He allows himself about a spoonful of water to rinse his mouth and spit, then takes a few swallows from his bottle. 

One minute, he tells himself. You get one minute to rest.

He takes the time to reorder his supplies, wad up the sleeping bags and messily stuff everything into the backpack. His minute's up. He knows it's time to move on, but the smoke has clouded his thoughts. The swift-footed animals that were his compass have left him behind. He knows he hasn't been in this part of the woods before there were no sizable rocks like the ones he's sheltering against on his earlier travels. 

Where are the Gamemakers driving him? Back to the lake? To a whole new terrain filled with new dangers? He had just found a few hours of peace at the pond when the attack began. Would there be any way he could travel parallel to the fire and work his way back there, to a source of water at least? The wall of fire must have an end and it won't burn indefinitely. Not because the Gamemakers couldn't keep it fueled, but because, again, that would invite accusations of boredom from the audience.

If he could just get back behind the fire line, he could avoid meeting up with the Careers. And Toph. He's just decided to try and loop back around, although it will require miles of travel away from the inferno and then a very circuitous route back, when the first fireball blasts into the rock about two feet from his head. He springs out from under his ledge, energized by new fear. 

The game has taken a twist. The fire was just to get them moving, now the audience will get to see some real fun. When he hears the next hiss, he flattens on the ground, not taking time to look. The fireball hits a tree off to his left, engulfing it in flames. To remain still is death. He's barely on his feet before the third ball hits the ground where he was lying, sending a pillar of fire up behind him. Time loses meaning more as he frantically tries to dodge the attacks. He can't see where they're being launched from, but it's not a hovercraft. The angles are mor extreme enough. 

Whatever vague plan he had conceived regarding returning to his pond is wiped from his mind as he zigzags and dives and leaps to avoid the fireballs. Each one is only the size of an apple, but packs tremendous power on contact. Every sense he has does into overdrive as the need to survive takes over. There's no time to judge if a move is the correct one. When there's a hiss, he acts or dies.

Sometime keeps him moving forward, though. A lifetime of watching the Hunger Games lets him know that certain areas of the arena are rigged for certain attacks. And that if he can just get away from this section, he might be able to move out of reach of the launchers. He might also fall straight into a pit of vipers, but he can't worry that now.

How long he scrambles along dodging the fireballs he can't say, but now the attacks begin to abate. Which is good, because he's retching again. This time it's an acidic substance that scales his thirst and makes its way to his nose as well. He's forced to stop as his body convulses, trying desperately to rid itself of the poisons he's been sucking in during the attack. He waits for the next hiss, the next signal to bolt. It doesn't come. The force of the retching has squeezed tears out of his stinging eyes. His clothes are drenched in sweat. He stares at himself, fascinated by the transformation, when the hissing registers. 

His muscles react, only not fast enough this time. The fireball crashes into the ground at his side, but not before it skids across his right calf. Seeing his pant leg on fire sends him over the edge. He twists and scuttles backward on his hands and feet, shrieking, trying to remove himself from the horror. When he finally regains enough sense, he rolls the leg back and forth on the ground, which stifles the worst of it. But then, without thinking, he tips away the remaining fabric with his bare hands.

He sits on the ground, a few yards away from the blaze set off by the fireball. His calf is screaming, his hands covered in red welts. He's shaking so hard to move. The attack is now over. The Gamemakers don't want him dead. Not yet, anyway. Everyone knows they would destroy them all within seconds of the opening gong. The real sport of the Hunger Games is watching the tributes kill one another. Every so often, they do kill a tribute just to remind the players they can. But mostly, they manipulate them into confronting one another face-to-face. Which means, if he is no longer being fired at, there is at least one other tribute close at hand.

He would drag himself into a tree and take cover now if he could, but the smoke is still thick enough to kill him. He makes himself stand and begins to limp away from the wall of flames that lights up the sky. It does not seem to be pursuing him any longer, except with its stinking black clouds.

Another light, daylight, begins to emerge softly. Swirls of smoke catch the sunbeams. His visibility is poor. He can see maybe fifteen yards in any direction. A tribute could easily be concealed from him here. He should draw his knife as a precaution, but he doubts his ability to hold it for long. The pain in his hands can in no way compete with that in his calf. He hates burns, has always hated them, even a small one gotten from pulling a pan of bread from the oven. It is the worst kind of pain for him, but he has never experienced anything like this.

He's so weary he doesn't even notice the pool until he's ankle-deep. It's spring-fed, bubbling up out of a crevice in someRick's, and blissfully cool. He plunges his hands into the shallow water and feels instant relief. Isn't that what his father always says? The first treatment for a burn is cold water? That it draws out the heat? But he means minor burns. Probably he'd recommend it for Sokka's hands. But what about his calf? Although he has not get had the courage to examine it, he's guessing it's an injury in a whole different class.

He lies on his stomach at the edge of the pool for a while, dangling his hands in the water, examining the little waves on his fingernails that are beginning to chip off. Then he bathes the blood and ash from his face. He tries to recall all he knows about burns. They are common injuries at home where they cook and heat their homes with coal. His leg is in need of attention, but he still can't look at it. What if he can see straight through to the bone? Then he remembers his father saying that if a burns's severe, the victim might not even feel pain because the nerves would be destroyed. Encouraged by this, he sits up and swings his leg in front of him.

The sight of his calf almost makes him faint. The flesh is a brilliant red covered with blisters. He forces himself to take deep, slow breaths, feeling quite certain the cameras are on his face. He can't show weakness at this injury. Not if he wants help. Pity does not get you aid. Admiration at your refusal to give in does.

He cuts the remains of the pant leg off at the knee and examines the injury more closely. The burned area is about the size of his hand. None of the skin is blackened. He thinks it's not too bad to soak. Gingerly he stretches out his leg into the pool, propping the heel of his boot on a rock so the leather doesn't get too sodden, and sighs, because this does offer some relief. He knows there are herbs, if he could find them, that would speed the healing, but he can't quite call them to mind. Water and time will most likely be all he has to work with.

Should he be moving on? The smoke is slowly clearing but still too heavy to be healthy. If he does continue away from the fire, won't he be walking straight into the weapons of the Careers? Besides, every time he lifts his leg from the water, the pain rebounds so intensely he has to slide it back in. His hands are slightly less demanding. They can handle small breaks from the pool. So he slowly puts his gear back in order. 

First he fills his bottle with pool water, treats it and when enough time has passed, begins to rehydrate his body. After a time, he forces himself to nibble on a cracker, which helps settle his stomach. He rolls up his sleeping. Except for a few black marks, it's relatively unscathed. His jacket I'd another matter; stinking and scorched, at least a foot of the back is beyond repair. He cuts off the damaged area, leaving him with a garment that comes just to the bottom of his ribs. Better than nothing.

Despite the pain, drowsiness begins to take over. He would take to a tree and try to rest, but he'd be such an easy target. Besides, abandoning his pool seems impossible. He neatly arranges his supplies, even settling his pack on his shoulders, but he can't seem to leave. He spots some water plants with edible roots and makes a small meal with his last piece of rabbit. Sips water. Watch the sun make its slow arc across the sky. Where would he go anyway that is safer than here? He can lean back on hispack, overcome by drowsiness. 

If the Careers want me, let them find me, he thinks before drifting into a stupor. Let Toph find me. 

And find him they do. It's lucky he's ready to move on because when he hears the feet, he has less than a minute head start. Evening has begun to fall. The moment he wakes, he's up and running, splashing across the pool, flying into the underbrush. His leg slows him down, but he senses his pursuers are not as speedy as they were before the fire, either. He hears their coughs, their raspy voices calling to one another.

Still, they are closing in, just like a pack of wild dogs, and so he does what he has his whole life in such circumstances. He picks a high tree and begins to climb. If running hurts, climbing is agonizing because it requires not only exertion but direct contact of his hands on the tree bark. He's fast, though, and by the time they've reached the base of his trunk he's twenty feet in the air. For a moment, they stop and survey one another. He hopes they can't hear the pounding of his heart.

This could be it, he thinks. What chances does he have against them? All six are here, the Careers and Toph, and his only consolation is that they're pretty beat up, too. Even so, look at their weapons. Look at their faces, all but Toph grinning and snarling at him, sure they've got a kill. It seems pretty hopeless, but then something else registers. They're bigger and stronger than he is, but they're also heavier. He must weigh at least fifty or sixty pounds less than the smallest Career.

Now he smiles. "How's everything with you?" he calls down cheerfully.

This takes them aback, but he knows the crowd will love it. 

"Well enough," says the boy from District 2. "Yourself?"

"It's been a bit warm for my taste," he says. He can almost hear the laughter in the Air Temples. "The air's better up here. Why don't you come up?"

"I think I will," Scarface replies.

"Here, take this, Zuko," says the girl from District 1, and she offers him the silver bow and sheath of arrows. His bow! His arrows! Just the sight of them makes him want to scream.

"No," Zuko says, pushing it away. "I'll do better with my sword." He can see the weapon, a short, heavy blade at his belt.

He gives Zuko time to hoist himself into the tree before he begins to climb again. Sokka's mother always told him that he reminded her of a squirrel, the way he can scurry up even the slenderest limbs. Part of it is his weight, but part of it's practice. You have to know where to place your hands and feet. He's another thirty feet in the air when he hears the crack and looks down to see Suko flailing as he and a branch go down. He hits the ground hard and he's hoping he possibly broke his neck when he gets back to his feet, swearing like a fiend.

The girl with the arrows, Yue, hears someone call her, scales the tree until the branches begin to crack under her feet and then has the good sense to stop. He's at least eighty feet in the air now. She tries to shoot him and it's immediately evident that she's incompetent with a boe. One of the arrows gets lodged in the tree near him, though, and he's able to seize it. He waves it teasingly above her heart as if this was the sole purpose of retrieving it, when actually he means to use it if he ever gets the chance. He could kill every one of them, if those silver weapons were in his hands.

The Careers regroup on the ground and he can hear them growling conspiratorially among themselves, furious that he has made them look foolish. But twilight has arrived and their window of attack on him is closing. Finally he hears Toph say sharply, "Oh, let him stay up there. It's not like he's going anywhere. We'll deal with him in the morning."

Well, she's right about one thing. He's going nowhere. All the relief from the pool wager has gone leaving him to feel the full potency of his burns. He scoots down to a fork in the tree and clumsily prepares for bed. Puts on his jacket. Lays out his sleeping bag. Belts himself in and tries to keep from moaning. The heat of the bag's too much for his leg. He cuts a slash in the fabric and hangs his calf out in the open air. He drizzles water on the wound, his hands.

All his bravado is gone. He's weak from pain and hunger but can't bring himself to eat. Even if he can last the night, what will morning bring? He stares into the foliage, trying hard not to look down, at the Careers, at Toph. He finds himself watching her sleep. 

Birds are settling down for the night singing lullabies to their young. Night creatures emerge. An owl hoots. The eyes of some animal, maybe a possum, peers at him from the neighboring tree. The faint smell if a skunk cuts through the smoke. 

Suddenly he's up on one elbow. Those are no possum's eyes, he knows their glassy reflection too well. In fact, those are not animal eyes at all. In the last dim rays of light, he makes him out, watching him silently from between the branches 

Aang.

How long has he been here? The whole time probably. Still and unobserved as the action unfolded beneath him. Perhaps he headed up to his tree shortly before he did, hearing the pack was so close.

For a while they hold each other's gaze. Then, without even rustling a leaf, his little hand slides into the open and points to something above his head.


	13. To The Lake!

Sokka's eyes follow the line of Aang's finger into the foliage above him. At first, he has no idea what he's pointing to, but then, about fifteen feet up, he makes out the vague shape in the dimming light. But... of what? Some sort of animal? It looks about the size of a raccoon, but it hangs from the bottom of a branch, swaying ever so slightly. There's something elesen among the familiar evening sounds of the woods, his ears register a low hum. Then he knows. It's a wasp nest.

Fear shoots through him, but he has enough sense to keep still. After all, he doesn't know what kind of wasps live there. It could be the ordinary leave-us-alone-and-we'll-leave-you-alone type. But these are the Hunger Games, and ordinary isn't the norm. More likely they will be one of the Air Temple's mutations, tracker jackers. They're nasty, having a large gold body and stingers that leave behind a lump the size of a plum. Most people can't tolerate more than a few. If you live, the hallucinations brought on by the venom have actually driven people to madness. And those wasps will hunt down anyone who disturbs their nest and attempt to kill them. That's where the tracker part of the name comes from.

After the war, the Air Temples destroyed all the nests surrounding their city, but the ones near the Districts remained untouched. Another reminder of their weakness, be supposes, just like the Hunger Games. 

So is that what hangs above him? He looks back to Aang for help, but he's melted back into the trees.

Given his circumstances, he guesses it doesn't matter what type of wasp nest it is. He's wounded and trapped. Darkness has given him a brief reprieve, but by the time the sun rises, the Careers will have formulated a plan to kill him, no matter if Toph protests. There's no way they could do otherwise after he's made them look so stupid. That nest may be the sole option he has left. If he can drop it down on them, he may be able to escape. But he'll be risking his life in the process.

Of course, he'll never be able to get close enough to the actual nest to cut it free. He'll have to saw off the branch at the trunk and send the whole thing down. The serrated point if his knife should be able to manage that. But can his hands? And will the vibration from the swing raise the swarm? And what if the Careers figure out what he's doing and move their camp? That would defeat the whole purpose. 

He decides that the best chance he will have to do the sawing without drawing notice will be during the anthem. That could begin at any time. He drags himself out of his bag, makes sure his knife is secured in his belt, and begins to make his way up the tree. This in itself is dangerous since the branches are becoming precariously thin even for him, but he perseveres. Whe. He reaches the limb that supports the nest, the humming becomes more distinctive. But it's still oddly subdued if these are tracker jackers. 

It's the smoke, he thinks. It has sedated them. This was the one defense the rebels found to battle the wasps.

The seal of the Air Temples shines above him and the anthem blares out. It's now or never. Blisters burst on his right hand as he awkwardly drags the knife back and forth across the branch. Once he's got a groove, the work requires less effort, but is almost more than he can handle. He grits his teeth and saws away, occasionally glancing at the sky to register that there were no deaths today. That's all right. The audience will be satisfied seeing him injured and treed and the pack below him. But the anthem's running out and he's only three quarters of the way through the wood when the music ends, the sky goes dark, and he's forced to stop.

Now what? He could probably finish the job by sense of feel, but that may not be the smartest plan. If your wasps are too groggy, if the nest catches on the way down, if he tries to escape, this could all be a deadly waste of time. Better, he thinks, to sneak back up here at dawn and send the nest into his enemies.

In the faint light of the Careers' torches, he inches back down to his fork to find the best surprise he's ever had. Sitting on his sleeping bag is a small plastic pot attached to a silver parachute. His first gift from a sponsor! Iroh must have sent it during the anthem. The pot easily fits into the palm of his hand. What can it be? Not food, surely. He unscrews the lid and knows by the scent that it's medicine. Cautiously, he probes the surface of the ointment. The throbbing in his fingertips vanishes. 

"Oh, Iroh," he whispers. "Thank you." He has not abandoned him. Not left him entirely to fend for himself. The cost of this medicine must be astronomical. Probably not one but many sponsors have contributed to buy this one tiny pot. To him, it is priceless. 

He dips two fingers into the jar and gently spreads the balm over his calf. The effect is almost magical, erasing the pain on contact, leaving a pleasant cooling sensation behind. This is no herbal concoction that his father grinds up out of woodland plants, it's high-tech medicine brewed up in the Air Temples' labs. When his calf is treated, he runs a thin layer into his hands. After wrapping the pot in the parachute, he nestles it safely away in his pack. Now that the pain has erased, it's all he can do to reposition himself in his bag before he plunges into sleep.

A bird perched just a few feet from him alerts that a new day is dawning. In the gray morning light, he examines his hands. The medicine has transformed all the angry red patches to a soft, baby-skin pink. His leg still feels inflamed, but that burn was far deeper. He applies another coat of medicine and quietly packs up his gear. Whatever happens, he's going to have to move and move fast. He also makes himself eat a cracker and a strip of beef and drink a few cups of water. Almost nothing stayed in his stomach yesterday, and he's already starting to feel the effects of hunger. 

Below him, he can see the Career pack and Toph asleep on the ground. By her position, leaning up against the tree, he guesses Yue was supposed to be on guard, but fatigue overcame her. His eyes squint as they try to penetrate the tree next to him, but he can't make out Aang. Since he tipped him off it seems only fair to warn him.

He calls his name in a hushed whisper and the eyes appear, wide and alert, at once. He points up to the nest again. He holds his knife and makes a sawing motion. Aang nods and disappears. There's a rustling in a nearby tree. Then the same noise a bit father off. He realizes that he's leaping from tree to tree. It's all Sokka can do not to laugh out loud. Is this what he showed the Gamemakers? He imagines little Aang flying around the training equipment, never touching the floor. He should've gotten at least a ten.

Rosy streaks are breaking through in the east. He can't afford to wait any longer. Compared to the agony of last night's climb, this one is a cinch. At the tree limb that holds the nest, he positions the knife in the groove and he's about to draw the teeth across the wood when he sees something moving. There, on the nest. The bright gold gleam of a tracker jacker lazily making its across the papery gray surface. No question, it's acting a little subdued, but the wasp is up and moving and that means the other will be out soon as well. Sweat breaks out on the palms of his hands, beading up through the ointment, and he does his best to pat them dry on his shirt. If he doesn't get through this branch in a matter of seconds, the entire swarm could emerge and attack him.

There's no sense in putting it off now. He takes a deep breath, grips the knife handle, and bears down as hard as he can. Back, forth, back, forth. The tracker jackers begin to buzz and he hears them coming out. Back, forth, back forth. A stabbing pain shoots through his knee and he knows one has found him and the other will be honing in. Back, forth, back, forth! And just as the knife cuts through, he shoves the end of the branch as far away from him as he can. It crashes down through the lower branches, snagging temporarily on a few hut then twisting free until it smashes with a thud onto ground. The nest bursts open like an egg, and a furious swarm of tracker jackers takes to the sky. 

He feels a second sting on the cheek, and a third on his neck, and their venom almost immediately makes him woozy. He clings to the tree with one arm while he drips the barbed stingers out of his flesh. Fortunately, only these three jackers had identified him before the nest went down. The rest of the insects have targeted their enemies on the ground.

It's mayhem. The Careers have woken to a full-scale tracker jacker attack. Toph and a few others have the sense to drop everything and bolt. He can hear cries of "To the lake! To the lake!" and they hope to evade the wasps by taking to the water. It must be close if they think they can outdistance the furious insects. Yue and the other girl, the one from District 4, aren't so lucky. They receive multiple stings before they're even out of his view. Yue appears to go completely mad, shrieking and trying to bat the wasps off with her bow, which is pointless. She calls to the others for help, but, of course, no one returns.

His thoughts turn to Toph for a split-second. How will she make it to the lake? She can't see where she's going. He'll just have to trust that she'll make it, because he knows in his heart that he wants her to live. If she dies, he won't be able to cope. And that's bad.

The girl from District 4 staggers out of sight, and he wouldn't bet on her making it to the lake. He watches Yue fall, twitch hysterically on the ground for a few minutes, then go still.

The nest is nothing but an empty shell. The wasps have vanished in pursuit of the others. He doesn't think they'll return, but he doesn't want to risk it. He scampers down the tree and hits the ground running in the opposite direction of the lake. The poison from the stingers makes him wobbly, but he finds his way back to his own little pool and submerges himself in the water, just in case any wasps are still on his tail. After about five minutes, he drags himself onto the rocks. People have not exaggerated the effects of the tracker jacker stings. Actually, the one on his knee is closer to an orange than a plum in size. A foul-smelling green liquid oozes from the lace where he pulled out the stingers.

The swelling. The pain. The ooze. Watching Yue twitch to death on the ground. It's a lot to handle before the sun has even cleared the horizon. He doesn't want to think about what Yue must look like now. Her body disfigured. Her swollen fingers stiffening around the bow...

The bow! Somewhere in his befuddled mind one thought connects to another and he's on his feet, teetering through the trees back to Yue. The bow. The arrows. He must get them. He hasn't heard the cannon fire yet, so perhaps Yue is still in some sort of coma, her heart still struggling against the wasp venom. But once it stops and the cannon signals her death, a hovercraft will move in and retrieve her body, taking the bow and the sheath of arrows with her. He refuses to let them slip through his fingers again. 

He reaches Yue just as the cannon fires. The tracker jackers have vanished. This girl, so breathtakingly beautiful in her silver dress the night of the interviews, is unrecognizable. Her features eradicated, her limbs three times their normal size. The stinger lumps have begun to explode, spewing green liquid around her. He has to break several of what used to be her fingers with a stone to free the bow. The sheath of arrows is pinned under her back. He tries to roll over her body by pulling on one arm, but the flesh disintegrates in his hands and he falls back on the ground.

Is this real? Or have the hallucinations begun? He squeezes his eyes tightly and tries to breathe through his mouth, ordering himself not to get sick. Breakfast must stay down. A second cannon fires and he guesses the girl from District 4 has just died. He hears the steady hum from the hovercraft and knows it is about to appear, but not for Yue. The girl from District 4 is being lifted into the air in the distance, then she vanishes.

"Do this!" he commands himself. Clenching his jaw, he digs his hands under Yue's body, gets a hold on what must be her rib cage, and forces her onto her stomach. He can't help it, he's hyperventilating now, the whole thing is so nightmarish and he's losing his grip on what's real. He tugs on the silver sheath of arrows and finally yanks it free. He's just encircled the sheath with his arms when he hears the footsteps, several pairs, coming through the underbrush, and he realizes the Careers have come back. They've come back to kill him or get their weapons or both.

It's too late to run. He pulls a slimy arrow from the sheath and tries to position is on the bowstring, but instead of one string he sees three and the stench is so repulsive he can't do it. He can't do it. He can't do it.

He's helpless as the first hunter crashes through the trees, a long, metal stick with wicked blades sticking out from every angle in her hands, but then she drops it and falls into his arms. He has no choice but to catch her.

"Toph?!" he splutters.

"What are you still doing here?" she hisses at him, her pale green eyes staring into his. She shoves him off of her and feels the ground for her stick, picks it up, and presses some button that makes all the sharp edges go away. Her whole body is sparkling like she's been dipped in dew.

"Are you mad?" She's prodding him with her stick now. "Get up! Get up!" He rises, but she's still pushing him. What? What is going on? "Run!" she screams. "Run!"

Behind her, Zuko slashes his way through the brush. He's sparkling wet too, and badly stung under one eye. Sokka catches the gleam of sunlight on his sword and does as Toph says. Holding tightly to his bow and arrows, banging into trees that appear out of nowhere, tripping and falling as he tries to keep his balance. Back past his po and into unfamiliar woods. The world begins to bend in alarming ways. A butterfly balloons to the size of a house and then shatters into a million stars. Trees transform into blood and splash down over his boots. Ants begin to crawl out of the blisters on his hands and he can't shake them free. They're climbing into his arms, his neck, his ears. He tries and talls into a small pit lined with orange bubbles that hum like the tracker jacker nest. 

Sick and disoriented, he's able to form only one thought: Toph Beifong just saved my life. 

Then the ants bore into his eyes and he blacks out.


	14. Aang

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hehehe this chapter is all about Aang, but there's some tokka in there too. Ofcourse. .

Sokka enters a nightmare from which he wakes repeatedly only to find a greater terror awaiting him. All the things he dreads most, all the things he dreads for others manifest in such vivid detail he can't help but believe they're real. Each time he wakes, he prays for it to be over, but it isn't. It's only the beginning of a new chapter to torture. How many ways does he watch Katara die? Relive his mother's last moments? Watch helplessly as Toph is ripped apart? This is the nature of the tracker jacker venom, so carefully created to target the place where fear lives in your brain.

When he finally does come to his senses, he lies still, waiting for the next onslaught imagery. But eventually he accepts that the poison must have finally worked its way out of his system, leaving his body wracked and feeble. He's still lying on his side, locked in the fetal position. He lifts a hand to his eyes to find them sound, untouched by the ants that were probably never there in the first place. Simply stretching out his limbs requires an enormous effort. So many parts of him hurt, it doesn't seem worthwhile taking inventory of them. Very, very slowly he manages to sit up. He's in a shallow hole, not filled with the humming orange bubbles of his hallucination but with old, dead leaves. His clothing is damp, but he doesn't know whether dew, rain, or sweat is the cause. For a long time, all he can do is take tiny sips from his bottle and watch a beetle crawl up the side of a honeysuckle bush. 

How long has he been out? It was morning when he lost reason. Now it's after noon, but the stiffness in his joints suggests that more than a day has passed, maybe two. If so, he'll have no way of knowing which tributes survived that tracker jacker attack. Not Yue or the girl from District 4. But there was Jet, the boy from District 1, Zuko and the girl from 2, and Toph. Did they die from the stings. Certainly if they lived, their last few days must have been as horrible as his. And what about Aang? He's so small, it wouldn't take much venom to do him in. But then again... the tracker jackers would've had to catch him, and he had a good head start.

A foul, rotten taste devours his mouth, and he drags himself over to the honeysuckle bush to pluck a flower. He gently pulls the stem through the blossom and sets the deep of nectar on his tongue. The sweetness spreads through his mouth, down his throat and warming his veins with memories of summer and his home in the woods. The woods make him think of the bread he would trade, and Toph's gift that he would receive... 

And suddenly he realizes that Toph... Toph saved his life! Because by the time they met up, he couldn't tell what was real and what the tracker jacker venom had caused him to imagine. But if she did, and his instincts tell him she did, what for? Is she simply working the Lover Girl angle for the cameras? Or was she actually trying to protect him? Their kiss in the hallway... maybe she wasn't lying when she said that she loved him. But then what is she doing with the Careers? And how on Earth will he be able to heal himself if she was lying and she doesn't love him? Because...because... he can't even bring himself to think about it, because once it forms a complete thought, there's no taking it back. He can't say it. But he feels it, and that scares him. Feelings have no place in the Hunger Games.

He focuses his thoughts instead on the one really good thing that's happened since he landed in the arena. He has a bow and arrows! A full dozen arrows if you count the one he retrieved in the tree. They bear no trace of the green slime that came from Yue's body - which leads him to believe that might not have been wholly real - but they have a fair amount of dried blood on them. He can clean them later. He does take a minute to shoot a few into a nearby tree. They are more like the weapons in the Training Center than his ones at home, but who cares? That he can work with.

The weapons give him an entirely new perspective on the Games. He knows he has tough opponents left to face. But he is no longer merely prey that runs and hides or takes desperate measures. If Zuko broke through the trees right now, he wouldn't flee, he'd shoot. He finds that he's actually anticipating the moment with pleasure.

But first, he has to get some strength back in his body. He's very dehydrated again and his water supply is dangerously low. The little padding he was able to put on by gorging himself during prep time in the Air Temples is gone, taking several pounds with them. His hip bones and ribs are more prominent than he remembers during those awful months after his mother's death, when his father caved in on himself and providing for Katara was burdened onto Sokka. And then there are his wounds to deal with. He treats his burns with the ointment and tries dabbing a bit on his stings as well, but it has little effect on them. His father knew a treatment for them, some leaf that drew out the poison, but he doesn't remember its name let alone its appearance. 

Water first, he thinks. You can hunt along the way now. It's easy to see the direction he came from by the path of destruction his crazed body had made through the foliage, so he walks off the other way, hoping his enemies still lie in the surreal world of tracker jacker venom.

He can't move too quickly, his joints reject any abrupt motions. But he establishes the slow hunter's tread he uses when tracking game. Within a few minutes, he spots a rabbit and makes his first kill with the bow and arrow. It's not his usual clean shot through the eye, but he'll take it. After about an hour, he finds a stream, shallow but wide, and more than sufficient for his needs. The sun is hot and severe, so while he waits for his water to purify he strips down to his underclothes and wades in the mild current. He's filthy from head to toe. He tries splashing himself but eventually just lies down in the water for a few minutes, letting it wash off the soot and blood and skin that has started to peel off his burns. 

After rinsing out his clothes and hanging them on bushes to dry, he sits on the bank in the sun for a bit, untangling his hair with his fingers. Despite its short length it somehow managed to wrap itself into knots. He eats a cracker and a strip of beef, and with a handful of moss he polishes the blood from his silver bow and arrows.

Refreshed, he treats his burns again, pulls his hair back, and dresses on the damp clothes, knowing the sun will dry them soon enough. Following the stream against its current seems the smartest course of action. He's traveling uphill now, which he prefers, with a source of fresh water not only for himself but possible game. He easily takes out a strange bird that he doesn't recognize but places in his pack all the same. By late afternoon, he decides to build a small fire to cook the meat, betting that dusk will conceal the smoke and he can quench the fire by nightfall. He cleans the Games taking extra care with the bird, but there's nothing alarming about it. Once the feathers are plucked, it's no bigger than a chicken, but it's plump and firm. He's just placed the first lot over the coals when he hears the twig snap.

Quick as a flash he's on his feet, swinging his bow over his shoulder and notching the arrow, poised to strike. There's no one there, at least not his eyes. But then he catches the tip of a child's boot just peeking out from behind the trunk of a tree. His shoulders relax and he grins. He can move through the woods like a shadow, you have to give him that. How else could he have followed him. The words come out of his mouth before he can stop them.

"You know, they're not the only ones who can form alliances."

For a moment, no response. Then one of Aang's stormy gray eyes peeks around the trunk. "You want me for an ally?"

"Why not? You saved me with those tracker jackers. You're smart enough to still be alive. And I can't seem to shake you, anyway," he says. He blinks at him, trying to decide. "You hungry?" Sokks can see him swallow hard, her eyes staring at the meat. "Come on, I've had two kills today."

Aang steps tentatively out into the open. "I can fix your stings."

"You can? How?"

He digs in the pack he carries and pulls out a handful of leaves. He's almost certain they are the ones his father uses. "Where'd you find those?"

"Just around. We all carry them when we work in the orchards. They left a lot of nests there," Aang says. "There are a lot here too."

"That's right, you're District Eleven. Agriculture," he says. "Orchards, huh. That must be how you can fit around the trees like you've got wings." Aang smiles, and he knows he's landed on one of the few things he'll admit pride in. "Well, come on, then. Fix me up."

He plunks down by the fire and rolls up his pant leg to reveal the sting on his knee. To his surprise, Aang places the handful of leaves into his mouth and begins to chew them. His father would use other methods, but it's not like they have a lot of options. After a minute or so, Aang presses a gloppy green wad of chewed leaves and spit on his knee.

"Ohhhh." The sound comes out of his mouth before he can stop it. It's as if the leaves are actually leeching the pain right out of the sting.

Aang giggles. "Lucky you had the sense to pull the stingers out or you'd be a lot worse."

"Do my neck! Do my cheek!" he begs.

Aang stuffs another handful of leaves in her mouth, and soon Sokka is laughing because the relief is so sweet. He notices a long burn on Aang's forearm. "I've got something for that," he says, grabbing his backpack and rubbing his arm with the ointment. 

"You have good sponsors," he says longingly.

"Have you gotten any yet?" he asks. He shakes his head. "You will, though. Watch. The closer we get to the end, the more people will realize how clever you are." He turns the meat over. 

"You... you weren't joking then?" His tone is apprehensive, but hopeful. "About wanting me for an ally?"

"No, I meant it," he says, and he can almost hear Ty Lee scoffing at the scene of him pairing up with this wispy child. But he wants him. Because she's a survivor, and he trusts her, and why not admit it? He reminds him of Katara.

"Okay," he says, holding out his small hand. They shake. "It's a deal."

Of course, this kind of deal can only be temporary. But neither of them mentions that.

Aang contributes a big handful of some sort of starchy root to the meal. Roasted over the fire, they have the sharp taste of a parsnip. He recognizes the bird, too, some wild thing they call a groosling in his District. He says sometimes a flock will wander into the orchard and they get a decent lunch that day. For a while, all conversation stops as they fill their stomachs. The groosling has delicious meat that's so fatty, the grease drips down your face when you bite into it.

"Oh," Aang says with a sigh. "I've never had a whole leg to myself before."

He'll bet he hasn't. "Take the other," he offers.

"Really?"

"Take whatever you want. Now that I've got a bow and arrows, I can get more. Plus I've got some snares. I can show you how to set them." 

Aang still looks uncertainty at the leg. "Oh, take it," Sokka says, putting the drumstick in his hands. "It'll only keep a few days anyway, and we've got the whole bird plus the rabbit." Once he's got hold of it, his appetite wins out and he takes a huge mouthful.

"I'd have thought, in District Eleven, you'd have a bit more to eat than us," he says. "You know, since you grow the food."

Aang's eyes widen. "No, we're not allowed to eat the crops."

"Oh. They arrest you or something?"

"They whip you and make everyone else watch. The mayor's very strict about it."

He can tell by his expression that it's not an uncommon occurrence. A public whipping is a rare thing in District 12, although occasionally one occurs. Technically, he could be whipped on a daily basis for poaching in the woods - actually, he could get a lot worse - except all the officials buy his meat. Besides, the mayor, Toph's father, doesn't seem to have much taste for such events. Maybe being the least prestigious, poorest, most ridiculed District in the country has its benefits. Such as the Air Temples ignoring them as long as they produce their coal quotas.

"Do you get all the coal you want?" Aang asks. 

"No. Just what we buy and whatever we track in on our boots."

"They feed us a bit extra during harvest," he adds. "So that people can keep going longer."

He frowns. "Don't you have to be in school?"

"Not during harvest. Everyone works then."

It's interesting, hearing about his life. They have skin little contact with anyone outside their District. In fact, he wonders if the Gamemakers are blocking out their conversation, because even though the information seems harmless, they don't want people in different Districts to know about one another.

At Aang's suggestion, they lay out all their food to plan ahead. He's seen most of his, but he adds the last couple crackers and beef strips to the pile. Aang has gathered quite a collection of roots, nuts, greens, and even some berries.

He rolls one of the berries between his fingers. "You're sure this is safe?"

"Oh, yes, we have them back home. I've been eating them for days," he says, popping a handful in her mouth. Sokka tentatively takes a bite into one, and it's good, almost like a blackberry. Taking Aang on as an ally seems a better choice all the time. They divide up their supplies, so in case they're separated, they'll both be set for days. Apart from the food, Aang has a small water skin, a homemade slingshot, and an extra pair of socks. He also has a sharp rock he uses as a knife. 

"I know it's not much," he says, embarrassed. "But I had to try to get away from the Cornucopia fast."

"You did just right," he replies. When he spreads out his gear, Aang gasps a little when he sees the sunglasses.

"How did you get those?"

He shrugs. "In my pack. They've been pretty useless so far, though. They don't do anything against the sun."

"They're not sunglasses, they're for darkness," he explains excitedly. "They help you to see in the dark, especially if you're up in the trees like I am. One time, this boy Bumi, he tried to keep his pair. Hid it in his pants. They killed him on the spot."

"They killed a boy for taking these?" he repeats, astonished.

"Yes, and everyone knew he was no danger. Bumi wasn't right in the head. I mean, he still acted like a three-year-old. He just wanted the glasses to play with."

Hearing this makes him feel like District 12 is some sort of safe haven. Of course, people keel over from starvation all the time, but he can't imagine the Peacekeepers murdering a simpleminded child.

"So what do these do?" he asks Aang, tossing her the glasses.

"They let you see in complete darkness," he says. "Try them tonight when the sun goes down."

He gives Aang some matches and he makes sure he has plenty of leaves in case his sting flares up again. They extinguish their fire and head upstream until it's almost nightfall.

"Where do you sleep?" he asks him. "In the trees?"

He nods, and Sokka knows his face must be doubtful for he pulls out his extra pair of socks. "I use these for my hands," he says.

"You can share my sleeping bag if you want," he offers. "We'll both easily fit." Aang's face lights up, and he can tell this is more than he dared hope for.

They pick a fork high in a tree and settle in for the night just as the anthems play. There were no deaths today.

"Aang, I only woke up today. How many nights did I miss?" The anthem should block out their words, but still he whispers. He even takes the precaution of covering his lips with his hands. He doesn't want the audience to know what he's planning to tell him about Toph. Taking a cue from him, Aang does the same.

"Two," he says. "The girls from Districts One and Four are dead. There's ten of us left."

"Something strange happened. At least, I think it did," he says. "You know the girl from my District? Toph. I think she saved my life. But she was with the Careers."

"She's not with them now," Aang says. "I've spied on their base camp by the lake. They made it back before they collapsed from the stingers. But she's not there. Maybe she did save you and had to run."

Panic seizes him. She isn't there... Oh, God. Did they kill her? He can barely stomach the thought. Focus, Sokka. Focus.

"It's... it's probably just part of her act," he manages to get out. "To make people think she loves me."

"Oh, I didn't think that was an act," Aang says thoughtfully. "The way she blushed... and how she worded things..."

The anthem ends, and with it, their conversation. The sky goes dark, and he tries out the sunglasses. Just as Aang said, he can see everything from the leaves on the trees to a skunk prowling the night a good fifty feet away.

"I wonder if the Careers have these."

"The Careers have two pairs. But they're got everything down by th4 lake. And they're so strong."

"We're strong too," he assures him. "Just in a different way."

"You are. You can shoot," he mumbles. "What can I do?"

"You can feed yourself. Can they?"

"They don't have to. They have all those supplies."

"Say they didn't. Say the supplies were gone. How long would they last? I mean, it's the Hunger Games, right?"

"But, Sokka, they're not hungry."

"No," he muses. "They're not. That's the problem." And for the first time, he has a plan. A plan that doesn't involve flight and evasion. An offensive plan. "I think we're going to have to change that, Aang."


	15. The Boy from District Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OMG IM SO SORRY IT TOOK SO LING TO UPDATE PLS FORGIVE ME

Aang has decided to trust him wholeheartedly. He knows this because as soon as the anthem finishes he snuggles up against him and falls asleep. Nor does he have any misgivings about him, as he takes no particular precautions. If he had wanted Sokka dead, all he would've had to do was disappear from that tree without pointing out the tracker jacker nest. 

At the back of his mind, he knows they both can't win these Games. But since the odds are still against either of them surviving, he manages to ignore the thought.

Besides, he's distracted by his latest idea about the Careers and their supplies. Somehow he and Aang must find a way to destroy their food. He's pretty sure feeding themselves will be a tremendous struggle. Traditionally, the Career tributes' strategy is to get hold of all the food early on and go from there. The years when they have not protected it well - one year a pack of hideous reptiles destroyed it, another a Gamemakers' flood washed it away - those are usually the years that tributes from other districts have won. That the Careers have been better fed growing up is actually to their disadvantage, because they don't know how to be hungry. Not the way he and Toph do.

Toph. The full impact of her name, of her, hits him hard. Where is she? Is she safe? Is she hurt? Is she dead? The last time he had seen her... he tries to conjure up an image, and the only thing that resurfaces to his brain is her big green eyes, wide with terror, her body leaning into his as she screamed at him to run. Maybe Aang was right. Maybe she did love him.

He shakes his head and tries to turn his thoughts back to the Careers, but he's too exhausted to begin any detailed plan tonight. His wounds recovering, his mind still a bit foggy from the venom, and the warmth of Aang at his side, his head cradled on Sokka's shoulder, have given him a sense of security. He realizes, for the first time, how lonely he's been in the arena. He gives in to his drowsiness, resolving that tomorrow the tables will turn. Tomorrow, it's the Careers who will have to watch their backs. 

The boom of the cannon jolts him awake. The sky is streaked with light, the birds already chattering. Aang perches in a branch across from him, his hands cupping something. They wait, listening for more shots, but there aren't any.

"Who do you think that was?" he asks, and against his will he thinks of Toph. No.

"I don't know. It could have been any of the others," Aang says. "I guess we'll know tonight."

"Who's left again?"

"The boy from District One, um..." he taps his chin, thinking of the name.

"Jet," Sokka supplies.

"Yes, Jet. Both from Two. The boy from Three. Me and Yaling. And you and Toph," says Aang. "That's eight. Oh, wait, and the boy from Ten and Azula."

"Azula?" he asks, puzzled. He's never heard that name before.

"The girl from Five. You know, the one who looks so sly all the time?"

Slyface. Yes, Sokka knows her. "I see. Well, that last death should hold the crowd for a bit. Maybe we'll have time to do something before the Gamemakers decide things have been moving too slowly. What's in your hands?"

"Breakfast," says Aang. He holds them out to reveal two big eggs.

"What kind are those?"

"Not sure. There's a marshy area over that way. Some sort of water bird."

It would be nice to cook them, but neither of them wants to risk a fire. His guess is the tribute who died today as a victim of the Careers, which means they've recovered enough to be back in the Games. They each suck out the insides of an egg, eat a rabbit leg and some berries. It's a good breakfast anywhere. 

"Ready to do it?" he says, pulling on his pack.

"Do what?" Aang asks, but the way he bounces up suggests he's up for whatever he proposes. 

"Today we take out the Careers' food," he says. 

"Really? How?" You can see thr tlint of excitement in his eyes. In this way, he's the opposite of Katara, for whom adventures are an ordeal.

"No idea. Come on, we'll figure out a plan as we hunt."

They don't get much hunting done though, because he's too busy getting every scrap of information he can out of Aang about the Careers' base. He's only been in to spy on them briefly, but he's observant. They have set up their camp beside the lake. Their supply stash is about thirty yards away. During the day, they've been leaving another tribute, the boy from District 3, to watch over the supplies.

"The boy from Three?" Sokka asks, surprised. "He's working with them?"

"Yes, he stays at the camp full-time. He got stung, too, when they drew the tracker jackers in by the lake," Aang says. "I guess they agreed to let him live if he acted as their guard. Sort of like how Toph impressed them by killing the boy from Four? But he isn't very big."

"What weapons does he have?"

"Not much that I could see. A spear. He might be able to hold a few of us off with that, but Yaling could kill him easily." A bit of pride seeps into his voice as he says that. Sokka understands. You can't help being at least a little proud of your District partner, no matter how hard they're trying to kill you. He thinks of Toph and immediately regrets it. Her face floods his mind. 

"And the food's just out in the open?" he asks him. He nods. "Something's not right about that whole setup."

"I know. But I couldn't tell what exactly," Aang says. "Sokka, even if you could get the food, how would you get rid of it?"

"Burn it. Dump it in the lake. Soak it in fuel." He pokes his belly, just like he would Katara. "Eat it!" Aang giggles. "Don't worry, I'll think of something. Destroying things is much easier than making them."

For a while, they dig for roots, gather berries and greens, and devise a strategy in dishes voices. And he comes to know Aang, an only child raised by his grandfather, fiercely protective of his friends, who gives his rations to the younger ones, who forages in a meadow despite the rules being far stricter there. Aang, who when you ask him what he loves most in the world, replies, of all things, "Jewelry."

"Jewelry?" he says. In his world, he ranks jewelry somewhere between ribbons and rainbows in terms of usefulness. At least a rainbow gives you a tip about the weather. "You have a lot of money for that?"

"Everyone has at least one piece, at home. That's why I love your bracelet," he says, tapping the meteor ring on his wrist that he's again forgotten about. 

"My bracelet?" He cradles it against his chest, which aches with longing. 

"Oh, yes. It's tradition for a man to present a woman with a bracelet at home. That's how she knows he really loves her. This," he pauses, pulling a thin arrow-shaped necklace from under his shirt, "was from my mother and father, before they died. It's also tradition to get a piece on the day you're born. This necklace has been in my family for a long time."

"Huh." Sokka had never given much thought to jewelry before. Now, he wonders, if things had turned out differently, would he be presenting Toph with a bracelet? Would their so-called friendship blossom into something more? It wasn't like he had a lot of options, back at home. Would they get married, have children, be in love? He will never know. They can never be together now. His feelings will have to stay buried, far beneath the surface.

By lunch, they have a plan. By early afternoon, they are poised to carry it out. He helps Aang collect and place wood for the first two campfires, the third he'll have time for on his own. They decide to meet afterward at the site where they ate their first meal together. The stream should help guide him back to it. Before he leaves, he makes sure Aang is well stocked with good and matches. He even insists he takes his sleeping bag, in case it's not possible to rendezvous by nightfall.

"What about you?" he asks, and Sokka is touched to hear the concern in his voice. "Won't you be cold?"

"Not if I pick up another bag down by the lake," he says. "You know, stealing isn't illegal here."

At the last minute, Aang decides to teach him his mockingjay signal, a four-note tune that means safety. "It might not work. But if you hear the mockingjays singing it, you'll know I'm okay, only I can't get back right away."

"Are there many mockingjays here?" he asks. 

"Haven't you seen them? They've got nests everywhere," he says, and Sokka has to admit that he hadn't noticed.

"Okay, then. If all goes according to plan, I'll see you for dinner," he says.

Unexpectedly, Aang throws his arms around him. He only hesitates a moment before he hugs him back. 

"You be careful," he says to him.

"You, too." He turns and heads back to the stream, feeling somehow worried. About Aang being killed, about Aang not being killed and the two of them being left last, about leaving Aang alone, about leaving Katara alone back home. No, Katara has their father and her friends and Toph's mother who promised she wouldn't go hungry. Aang has only him.

Once he reaches the stream, he has only to follow it downhill to the place he initially picked it up after the tracker jacker attack. He has to be cautious as he moves along the water though, because he finds most of his thoughts preoccupied with unanswered questions, most of which concern Toph. The cannon that fired early this morning, did that signify her death? If so, how did she die. At the hand of a Career? And was that in revenge for letting him live? He struggles again to remember that moment over Yue's body, when she burst through the trees. But just the fact that she was sparkling leads him to doubt everything that happened.

He must have been moving very slowly yesterday because he reaches the shallow stretch where he took his bath in just a few hours. He stops to replenish his water and adds a layer of mud to his backpack. It seems bent on reverting to orange no matter how many times he covers it.

His proximity to the Career's camp sharpens his senses, and the closer he gets to them, the more guarded he is, pausing frequently to listen for unnatural sounds, an arrow already fitted into the string of his bow. He doesn't see any other tributes, but he does notice some of the things Aang mentioned. Patches of the sweet berries, a bush with the leaves that healed his stings, clusters of tracker jackers nests in the vicinity of the tree he was trapped in, and here and there, the flash of a mockingjay wing.

When he reaches the tree with the abandoned nest at the foot, he pauses a moment, to gather his courage. Aang has given specific instructions on how to reach the best spying place near the lake from this point. He gets a firmer grasp on his bow and goes on, making it to the copse Aang told him about and again admires his cleverness. It's right at the edge of the wood, but the bushy foliage is so thick down low he can easily observe the Career camp without being spotted. Between them lies the flat expanse where the Games began.

There are four tributes. Jet, Zuko and his District partner, and a scrawny, ashen-skinned boy who must be from District 3. He made almost no impression on Sokka at all during their time in the Air Temples. He can remember almost nothing about him, not his costume, not his training score, not his interview. Even now, as he sits their fiddling with some kind of plastic box, he's easily ignored in the presence of his large and domineering companions. But he must be of some value, or they wouldn't have let him live. Still, seeing him only adds to his sense of unease over why the Careers would possibly leave him as guard, why they have allowed him to live at all.

All four tributes seem to still be recovering from the tracker jacker attack. Even from here, he can see the large swollen lumps on their bodies. Evidently they aren't aware of the poison-sucking leaves and the medicine from the Air Temples must be ineffective so far.

The Cornucopia sits in its original position, but its insides have been picked clean. Most of the supplies are in crates, burlap sacks, and plastic bins, and are piled neatly in a pyramid in what seems a questionable distance from the camp. Others are sprinkled around the perimeter of the pyramid, almost mimicking the layout of supplies around the Cornucopia at the onset of the Games. A canopy of netting that, aside from discouraging birds, seems to be useless shelters the pyramid itself.

The whole setup is perplexing. The distance, the netting, and the presence of the boy from District 3. One thing's for sure, destroying those supplies is not going to be as simple as it looks. Some other factor is at play here, and he'd better stay put until he figures out what it is. His guess is the pyramid is booby-trapped in some manner. 

While he's mulling over his options, he hears Zuko shout out. He's pointing up to the woods, far beyond him, and without turning he knows that Aang must have set the first campfire. They'd made sure to gather enough green wood to make the smoke noticeable. The Careers begin to arm themselves at once. 

An argument breaks out. It's loud enough for him to hear that it concerns whether or not the boy from 3 should stay or come.

"He's coming. We need him in the woods and his job's done here anyway. No one can touch those supplies," says Zuko.

"What about Lover Girl?" Jet asks.

"I keep telling you, forget about her," Zuko snarls. "I know where I cut her. It's a miracle she hasn't bled to death yet. It's not like she can raid us, with those dumb eyes."

So Toph is out there in the woods, wounded badly. His heart hurts to think of her suffering like that. 

"That's what you said about her in the beginning," the girl from 2 snaps. "And then she killed Lee and almost took Jet out! Quit underestimating her!"

"Shut up, okay? We're not talking about her right now." Zuko shoves a spear in the hands of the boy from 3. "Come on. Let's go. When we find him, I kill her in my own way, and none of you interfere."

Somehow he doesn't think he's talking about Aang. He didn't stop a nest of tracker jackers on them.

He stays put for a half hour or so, trying to figure out what to do about the supplies. The one advantage he has with the bow and arrow I'd distance. He could send a flaming arrow into the pyramid easily enough - he's a good enough shot to get it through those openings on the net - but there's no guarantee it would catch. More likely it'd just burn itself out and then what? He'd have achieved nothing and given them far too much information about himself. That he was here, that he has an accomplice, that he can use a bow and arrow with accuracy.

There's no alternative. He's going to have to get in closer and see if he can't discover what exactly protects the supplies. In fact, he's just about to reveal himself when a movement catches his eye. Several hundred yards to his right, he sees someone emerge from the woods. At first he thinks it's Aang, but then he recognizes Slyface. No, Azula. That's her name. 

She creeps out onto the plain. When she decides it's safe, she runs for the pyramid with quick, small steps. Just before she reaches the circle of supplies that have been littered around the pyramid, she stops, searches the ground, and carefully places her feet on a spot. Then she begins to approach the pyramid with strange little hops, sometimes landing on one foot, teetering slightly, sometimes risking a few steps. At one point, she launches up in the air, over a small barrel and lands poised on her tiptoes. But she overshot slightly, and her momentum throws her forward. He hears her give a sharp squeal as her hands hit the ground, but nothing happens. In a moment, she's regained her feet and continues until she has reached the bulk of the supplies.

So he's right about the booby trap, but it's clearly more complex than he had imagined. He was right about Azula, too. How wily is she to have discovered this path into the food and to be able to replicate it so neatly? She fills her pack, taking a few items from a variety of containers, crackers from a crate, a handful of apples from a burlap sack bag that's suspended from a rope off the side of a bin. But only a handful from each, not enough to tip off that the food is missing. And then she's doing her odd little dance back out of the circle and scampering into the woods again, safe and sound.

He realizes he's grinding his teeth in frustration. Azula has confirmed what he'd already guessed. But what sort of trap have they laid that requires such dexterity? Has so many trigger points? Why did she squeal so as her hands made contact with the earth? You'd have thought... and slowly it dawns on him.. you'd have thought the very ground was going to explode. 

"It's mined," he whispers. That explains everything. The Careers' willingness to leave their supplies, Azula's reaction, the involvement of the boy from District 3, where they make the factories, where they make televisions and automobiles and explosives. But where did he get them? In the supplies? That's not the sort of weapons the Gamemakers usually provide, given that they like to see the tributes draw blood personally.

He slips out of the bushes and crosses to one of the round metal plates that lifted the tributes into the arena. The ground around it has been dug up and lasted back down. The land mines were disabled after the sixty seconds they stood on the plates, but the bot from 3 must have been able to reactivate them. He's never seen anyone in the Games do that. He bets it came as a shock even to the Gamemakers.

Well, hurray for the boy from 3 for putting one over on them, but what is he supposed to do now? Obviously he can't go strolling into that mess without blowing himself sky-high. As for sending a burning arrow, that's more laughable than ever. The mines are set off by pressure. It doesn't have to be a lot, either. One year, a girl dropped her token, a small wooden ball, while she was at her plate, and they literally had to scrape bits of her off the ground.

His arm's pretty good. He might be able to chuck some rocks in there and set off what? Maybe one mine. That could start a chain reaction. Or could it? Would the boy from 3 have placed the mines in such a way that a single mine would not disturb the others? Thereby protecting the supplies but ensuring the death of the invader. Even if he only blew up one mine, he'd draw the Careers back down on him for sure.

He glances back up at the woods. The smoke from Aang's second fire is wafting toward the sky. By now, the careers have probably begun to suspect some sort of trick. Time is running out.

There is a solution, he knows there is, if he can only focus hard enough. He stares at the pyramid, the bins, the crates, too heavy to topple over with an arrow. He's genuinely thinking of trying to recreate Azula's trip up to the pyramid in hopes of finding a new means of destruction when his eyes light up on the burlap bag of apples. He could sever the rope in one shot, didn't he do as much in the Training Center? It's a big bag, but it still might only be good for one explosion. If only he could free the apples themselves...

He knows what to do. He moves into range and gives himself three arrows to get the job done. He places his feet carefully, blocking out the rest of the world as he takes meticulous aim. The first arrow tears through the side of the bag near the top, leaving a split in the burlap. The second widens it to a gaping hole. He can see the first apple teetering when he lets the third arrow fly, catching the torn flap of burlap and ripping it from the bag.

For a moment, everything seems frozen in time. Then the apples spill to the ground and he's blown backward into the air.

**Author's Note:**

> Here it is! This idea popped into my head and I decided to out it down. I hope you liked it!


End file.
